Decreasing Radii

by cathalin

Summary:

An alien device forces John and Rodney to do something they wouldn't do otherwise. The aftermath is not easy. But sometimes, not-easy leads to good things.

Notes:

Note: Originally posted on my livejournal HERE

Content note: Contains Alien Device Made Them Do It and the aftermath.

It started as a sort of itch – more like a tug, really – in John’s extremities. A restless feeling, like he needed to stretch, or stick fight, or maybe fly something. He went on a longer, faster run than usual, letting the sound of the ocean merge with the pounding of his legs, relishing the salt tang of the air flowing into his lungs. He felt fine after that, and easily fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The weird feeling was back again the next day, a little more insistent. It was hard to come up with an adjective to describe it accurately – itching wasn’t right, burning was too strong – maybe restless hit it about right. It was no big deal, though a couple of times he caught himself being a little distracted by it. Fortunately, there weren’t any crises, so all he’d been distracted from was a briefing or two. Which, given the nature of the briefings – something about paperwork, something about food service – really wasn’t a problem for him. Things were pretty boring right now, in fact, since Rodney was back on the planet with the kids, and Ronon and Teyla were working on a military training program for the Athosians.

The third day, he woke up feeling like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. Little pinpricks of sensation were stabbing at him from the inside. He shook it off and flew a routine mission with a couple of scientists and some marines; setting up some research and ferrying supplies to a forested planet with a low-tech civilization. He could practically hear McKay in his head: “Because we need alliances with more forested planets with low-tech civilizations.”

His marines looked at him kind of funny on the flight back; he was sweating and he had to breathe a little hard because of the prickling under his skin. The jumper took a couple of dips that made the scientists gasp. He bit his lip and focused hard on not doing something stupid and getting stranded with a jumper full of geologists and botanists.

After, one of his Lieutenants asked, “You alright, Sir?” with an expression John recognized as the face of a soldier trying to decide whether it was better to risk confronting a commanding officer with a problem or .risk not bringing something important to his attention.

“Yeah,” he drawled. “I’m good.” When that didn’t wipe the expression off Chavez’s face, he added, “I’ll take care of it before I fly again.” Good soldier, he thought, watching Chavez nod at that, and his expression clear.

That night, he clenched his hands in the sheets and tried very hard not to toss and turn. The prickling had intensified a little, and now there were weird tinglings in what felt like his internal organs. Probably some flu thing, he figured, doing some calculations in his head about wing shape and lift to try to get his mind off the way he felt.

He woke up at four the next morning feeling like crap, little darts of sensation angling through his body. He sighed and went for a jog. He had to stop after a mile and walk back, gasping and hoping like hell he wasn’t going to have to radio for assistance.

He wasn’t completely stupid, and it’d been a lot of years since he’d let any macho tendencies keep him from visiting doctors – well, at least when it felt like all the cells of his body had fire ants marching through them. He’d lectured his own marines enough times; out here in the freaky Pegasus, little personal medical matters could end up imperiling an entire expedition. So when the pain didn’t subside when he got to his quarters, he cursed, took a scalding shower, and was there waiting for Keller when she arrived at the infirmary.

When all the preliminary tests came back negative for anything alien, he braced himself for the inevitable. Keller delivered right on cue, looking him in the eye, saying, “You’ve been under a lot of stress recently,” voice modulated to be perfectly non-judgmental.

“Right,” he said, trying not to feel ridiculous perched on the exam table. “It’s not that, though.”

She looked him right in the eyes for a minute, smiling a little, and he was horrified to find himself adding, “I know what that feels like.”

She nodded, frowning. “Well, we’ll have the results back tomorrow sometime from the cultures that take a while to grow.” Her brow furrowed. “Not, you know, grow, as in bad, just – you know - grow.”

“Yeah, got the concept. Thanks,” he said, swinging down from the table, gathering his dignity as best he could.

“In the meantime, I guess – just be sure to call me right away if it gets worse, or changes, you know?” Her forehead was still furrowed with that concentrating look she got sometimes.

“Sure,” he said easily. Really, it was probably something perfectly normal. Maybe it was stress – he knew himself well enough to understand that he’d not really processed his father’s death – god, he hated that, putting the word “processed” near the word “death” – and there’d been some stuff this year which went beyond the Pegasus’s normal ration of crazy. He probably just needed to ride it out, like he rode out the bone-deep ache of wounds he’d accumulated over the years.

By noon, he was crawling out of his skin, the not-right feeling grown to an almost-burning. If he focused hard on whatever he was doing, he could push it to the back of his brain, but it had become impossible to ignore completely.

By dinner, he knew he was going to have to go back to Keller. It was burning now, for real, a steady aching fire that made it impossible to concentrate on anything. He’d just come from the shooting range, where his hands had shaken as he lined up at the target, and he’d not been able to land a single shot within his normal zone. He’d finally swallowed some painkillers, but the sensation was only getting worse. It wasn’t localized at all; his entire body, from his scalp to his fingertips and toes and everywhere in between, was crawling with it.

“John, are you alright?” Teyla asked, frowning at him over the table.

“Sure,” he said, wincing a little even as he said it at the obvious lie. “No,” he amended, before she could get all sincere on him. “There’s something – .”

And suddenly, the pain was gone. Like that, in the blink of an eye, in the microsecond between words. “Huh,” he managed.

He slumped a little in his chair at the sudden absence of the burning feeling. With the sensation gone, he realized how bad it had really been. Though he hadn’t classified it as pain, exactly, it really had been. Without realizing it, he’d been bracing himself against it all day – well, for three days, but much worse today. In its absence, it solidified in his mind for what it was – steadily increasing, burning pain involving every cell in his body.

“Colonel?” Teyla asked, leaning forward over the table.

“Okay now,” he said, then held up a preemptive hand. “Yes, I’ve seen Keller, she was checking it out. Guess I’ll go tell her not to bother.”

It was surprisingly difficult to stand up, but once he got going, the weak shaky feeling dissolved into a sense of extreme well-being, an absence of pain which made him rejoice in his body, strong and capable and his to control.

Keller gave him an appraising look, said, “Huh,” obviously seeing a difference in the way he was holding himself from earlier in the day. “I should have more test results late tomorrow, but unless they show anything anomalous, maybe you dodged one this time.”

He ran into Rodney when he went to practice stick-fighting with Ronon; weirdly, he was emerging, sweaty and red-faced with Teyla, shirt damp and clinging to his broad shoulders. “Don’t even start on me,” he said, waving his hand in front of John’s face, slightly breathless. “I know I don’t do this often enough.”

“Yeah, well, wasn’t going there,” John drawled.

“Sure you weren’t,” Rodney huffed.

“I’m just glad to see you working out,” John said.

Rodney looked almost sheepish. “Yeah, well, I feel so much better now that I’m back here. I just wanted to, you know, move. The Planet of the Young just doesn’t agree with me.”

John woke the next morning refreshed and feeling better than he had in, well, four or five days. He’d stopped bracing himself against the pain coming back, and he felt fantastic. He had to stop himself from whistling in the morning briefing, and he downed food happily at lunch, savoring the feeling of fueling his body, relishing the no-longer-exotic Pegasus tastes on his tongue.

“Joie de vivre?” Rodney snarled, slamming his tray down next to John’s.

“You could say that,” he replied. “I take it all’s not joie in Rodney’s world today?”

Rodney snorted. “Do I look like I’m a repairman? I mean, really, do I? Because I’m starting to think I should raise my rates. My incompetent staff already screwed up the shield generator on that damn planet, and now I’ve got to go back. I’m telling you, this time I’m killing the first person who gets near me with paint or feathers; I don’t care if they’re seven years old with braids.”

Rodney’s hands cut through the air with disdain, his eyes were narrowed, his mouth twisted into a frown. John tried to get his lips to not curl into a smile, but it was a losing battle. Rodney narrowed his eyes at John and took a breath, obviously ready to begin a rant, which was mercifully prevented by someone calling him over the radio. Rodney’s face smoothed into the vague look people tended to get when they were listening to someone in their ear, rolled his eyes, and spat into his radio, “Fine, fine, can’t you let a man eat before he goes off to - . Oh, fine,” he yelled, cramming a last piece of sandwich into his mouth. “Bus this for me, will you, Colonel?”

John raised his eyebrows at Rodney, who was already turning away from the table. Rodney shot back over his shoulder, “Sure, fine, glory in my pain. I’ll come back and haunt you the rest of your life when those incompetent people who call themselves scientists cause me to die of disgust.”

John was still smiling as he bused Rodney’s dishes along with his own a few minutes later – he’d lingered, savoring how good he felt, so it hit him like a ton of bricks when suddenly the pain was back, flaring through every part of his body. He staggered, reaching out to steady himself on the counter. He had to breathe fast and shallow against the burn, felt himself break out in a cold sweat, nausea twisting his stomach.

After a minute, he adjusted slightly to the wash of pain and was able to straighten and make his shaky way to the infirmary. Keller took one look at him and ordered him to lie down, firing questions at him. The answers were: definitely worse than yesterday, every cell in his body, and I was just throwing away some napkins. She pressed her lips together and was about to speak when just as suddenly as before, the pain winked out – though this time, he could feel little residual aches, and he was still shaking a little.

“Colonel?” she asked, and he was about to try to explain, when she cocked her head, listening to her headset, responding to whatever was said. “I’ll be waiting.”

He stared at her, and she just said, “It’s McKay,” running towards the doors, which opened on a team carrying McKay on a stretcher. John’s heart clenched a little, the way it did whenever one of the team came back to the city like that.

“I’m telling you, it’s all gone now, I’m fine,” Rodney yelled. “This is a waste of time!” Well, that was good; Rodney was yelling, so it probably wasn’t anything too serious.

“I’ll be the judge of that, Rodney,” Keller said. “They said you doubled over in pain, then passed out.”

“But it’s gone!” Rodney sputtered, launching himself off the stretcher. “The minute I hit this side of the Gate I was fine.” He frowned at John. “What are you doing here?”

The sinking feeling in John’s stomach was matched by Keller’s expression – an expression he’d become used to over the past few years: the “Oh, god, now what has the Pegasus done” expression he’d seen on Carson’s face so many times – hell, on his own face in the mirror, for that matter.

“Okay, everyone, just wait a minute,” Keller said, hand in the air. “You,” she said, pointing at Rodney, “On the table. You,” she said, pointing at John, “Stay right there.”

Rodney rolled his eyes, but obeyed, climbing up sulkily onto the exam table. He looked flushed and mussed, and his shirt was a little askew.

“Now both of you, start talking,” Keller said, tablet ready. “I want to know everything you’ve done, everywhere you’ve been. If you’ve been exposed to something, we need to track its origin, so start thinking. And talking.”

As various doctors and nurses performed tests and drew samples, she took them through their recent pasts. Though of course they’d been lots of places in the city and eaten lots of food in Atlantis, she preliminarily ruled that out as a source of contagion, since so many others had done the same. The last planet they’d been to together, MCX-435, Teyla and Ronon had been to as well, along with a small group of marines. The same was true of all the planets both of them had visited within the year except Harmony’s planet, and there had always been other Lanteans with them.

“So,” Keller said, “We need to start investigating, beginning with that one you called, what, the Princess Planet, since it was just the two of you. But it might not be that one – it could easily be one of the places more than the two of you went to. You may just be manifesting something first, or have eaten something unique, or somehow been exposed to something others weren’t. Let’s go through all this again, starting with the most recent, and retrace your steps, figure out what’s unique to the two of you.”

“We should probably start sending teams out to check this out at the last few planets we’ve been to,” John said.

“Not sure it’s time to send people out yet,” Keller said. “Until we know for sure what we’re dealing with.” She nodded, obviously thinking it through as she went. “Yeah. For now probably the best thing to do is make lists, run some more tests, and wait for results. And in the meantime, your tests should come back soon, Colonel, which should give us some indication whether there is any contagion, or other - ” she stopped for a second, obviously searching for a word to convey her meaning “ - other Pegasus-type thing.”

After a few hours of questions and tests, they still hadn’t figured anything out, but they had a list of places the two of them had been on various planets without anyone else – a castle here, a laboratory there, an agricultural complex, a temple, and in one case, a bar.

Eventually, Keller reluctantly let them leave, after extracting promises that they’d call her the instant they felt anything unusual. Rodney looked wrung out, though he insisted he felt great, and John suspected he looked the same. When they went in different directions to their rooms after exiting the transporter, John felt the exhaustion of the day close in on him all the way. There were some residual aches, he realized, probably from all the tension, but they were nothing that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix.

He woke up a couple of times in the night, not seeming to be able to get comfortable, despite popping some painkillers and taking a hot shower. Still, he woke up feeling fairly refreshed and put in a full morning’s work. By afternoon, he noticed a slight tugging feeling, like the sensation he’d had – what, five, six days ago, when this whole thing began. Nothing major, and he might not have even noticed if he hadn’t experienced what he had over the past few days.

By evening, he still hadn’t heard from Keller, and the tug had grown to a steady ache - almost a pulling sensation, like his insides were straining away from his body - so he headed to the infirmary after dinner. Sure enough, Keller was there, frowning over a computer screen. “Colonel, I was just going to call you. Sit down.”

That was never good, John knew from experience, the sinking feeling in his gut growing worse.

Keller turned and smiled at him. “Well, the good news is that I haven’t found any evidence of any illness or contagion – nothing viral or bacterial.”

“Okay,” John said, waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop.

“Right, well, the bad news,” she said. “I don’t know what it means yet, but there are definitely some chemical abnormalities, and something strange is happening at a cellular level.”

“Something strange,” John deadpanned.

Keller sighed. “There’s something happening in your cells. It’s like they’re – expanding a little, for no apparent reason. You also have increased levels of a few neurotransmitters and increased brain activity in the pain centers.”

“Expanding?” John asked, remembering his training on cell expansion in a host of unpleasant conditions, all of which brought pain, disfigurement and likely death.

“Mm-hm,” she responded. “But I’m not seeing all of the processes I’d expect to see if this was leading to damage, just some of them – it’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something.” She looked at him for a second, and added, “That’s a good thing.”

John nodded, trying to figure out what question to ask next. Suddenly, Rodney rushed in, looking sweaty and scared. “Keller, I’ve been feeling that feeling again, the itchy burning thing, and it seems like it’s getting worse again, and - .” Rodney stopped in his tracks, cocked his head to the side. “Damn,” he whispered. “It’s gone.”

As soon as he said it, John realized it was true for him, too. He turned to Keller with a raised eyebrow. “Mine, too. I feel great.” And he did. There was no tugging sensation, no burn – he felt wonderful.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” McKay said, snapping his fingers, staring at John, “Oh my god, it’s something about us – ” he waved a hand toward John “- something about us being in Atlantis, or – “ he looked at John, horror written on his face. “Okay, go, go, walk down the hall, or – no, I will, and let me know – wait, what are you feeling right now?”

“Fine. I feel fine right now. Great,” he said, stomach tightening a little.

McKay nodded. “Me, too. I’ll take a transporter, see what happens.”

John had a feeling he knew what would happen, and he was right. The minute McKay left, he felt the itchy tugging start up, then felt it suddenly bloom into a light burning. “Did you just take the transporter?” he asked Rodney on his headset.

“Yeah, went to the eastern edge of the city – you know, the power station,” Rodney said, voice tinged with worry.

“How’re you feeling, buddy?” John asked, realizing that the burn he was feeling was actually more like genuine pain.

“Not so good,” McKay responded, sounding a little breathless. “You?”

“Same. Come on back.”

They ran a few more experiments, and it was sickeningly clear: the sensation was inversely related to their proximity to each other.

“I don’t understand,” Rodney finally said. “It hurt the worst when I was off-world. But when I got back, it was completely gone. Why is it starting again? I can even feel it a little right now.”

John sighed, the little knot of anxiety in his stomach tightening. He was pretty sure he knew what was happening. “I think I know. There’s a decreasing radius thing going on.”

“What? A thing? You don’t have to impress me with physics terms right now, you know, it’s really not the time for - .”

“Look.” John grabbed a pen and drew a spiral on the back of an STD pamphlet as Rodney and Keller looked on. “I think it’s a decreasing radius – event. Like some spirals in a fighter plane. Or a freeway off ramp; you know how people are always wiping out because the radius actually shrinks on some of those as you go around?”

Rodney sniffed. “If the idiots actually learned physics, they’d understand you can’t power your way through one of those.”

John nodded. “Right. I’ll bet somehow the amount of distance we can be apart without feeling pain is shrinking.”

“Okay, right,” Rodney said, grabbing the pen from John. “It started – four, no five, days ago, when we were light years apart, and then the next point of data we have – let’s see – .”

“Yesterday,” John said.

“Yes, yes, and now today, so – .” Rodney wrote some numbers on the pamphlet. When he looked up, he looked stricken. “Oh my god. It’s shrinking so fast; just tonight it’s already gotten smaller.”

Keller looked grim. “And it’s likely not just discomfort, because it’s doing something to your cells. I think you need to minimize the – the whatever it is – as much as you can while we figure this out.”

“Which means?” Rodney asked, raising his chin a little.

“Which means neither of you should go off-world until I figure out what’s going on medically, and you should minimize the sensation in whatever way you need to.” She looked about as thrilled to be saying that as John felt hearing it. His hands felt clammy, his stomach was twisting, and he had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

“Whatever way we need to; what the hell are you saying? You mean we’ve got to, to follow each other around?” Rodney yelled, voice rising on the last words.

“Here, look at this,” Keller said, pulling up a display on the closest monitor. “These are the Colonel’s cells.”

“Yes, so?” Rodney huffed.

“Well, they’re supposed to look like this,” Keller said, pulling up another picture. “See this expansion? That was from this morning, when you were off-world. I don’t know exactly what’s happening there, but it’s never a good thing to have your cells changing like that. And yours probably look exactly the same, Rodney. We’ll know by morning, but I’m sure the same mechanism is at work. And I’m guessing that when there’s less pain, there’s less expansion, though that’s something we’ll have to test for.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, god, just how I want to spend my time, with the Colonel here - ” he waved loftily at John “ - looking over my shoulder while I’m working.”

“Hey!” John protested. “Maybe you’re going to be looking over my shoulder while I’m working.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Right, because Atlantis needs you slouching around and shooting at paper targets more than it needs me finding solutions to life-threatening problems.”

John was set to fire back so he wouldn’t have to think about the possible implications of the whole thing when Keller held up a hand. “Whatever. The point is, I want radio check-ins every four hours, and both of you here tomorrow first thing for exams. And I’m going to want more samples, probably every day, to monitor how this is going down.” Her face took on a grim expression. “I may want to admit you both – I probably should tonight, really.”

Rodney and John shared a quick look. John said, “Uh, doc, we’ll – we’ll monitor each other, and check in a lot, and - .”

Rodney broke in. “Yes, yes, with me around, if anything we’ll err on the side of over-reporting, and - .”

“Oh go on,” Keller said, waving them towards the door. “I know you’ve both probably had your fill of this place. But this could get serious, so don’t be all - .” she waved a hand in the air.

“All flyboy?” Rodney offered.

“Yeah,” she said. “Exactly.”

John shot Rodney a dirty look, but managed to switch it instantaneously to the look experience taught him read as serious and professional, and focused it on Keller. He asked, “What about checking out the planets we’ve been to recently?”

“Let me work tonight and we’ll try to narrow it down, okay?” she said. “I think we might have a better idea what we’re looking for if I can isolate some factors overnight.”

John was tired, though he was feeling fine now that Rodney was in the same room. Most of him wanted, desperately, to start tracking down the cause of this thing, right now. The more rational part knew that he wouldn’t be worth much until he got some rest, and that they’d have a much better shot of figuring out what had caused it if Keller had a chance to get some results in the meantime. Rodney looked really tired, anyway, and maybe with both of them back on Atlantis he’d be able to catch up on sleep. He had a feeling Rodney hadn’t been sleeping any better than he had.

Rodney was unusually quiet as they rode the transporter to their floor, and they parted with simple nods. John’s stomach, which was already tight, knotted a little more as they separated to walk in different directions to their quarters, because the tugging was definitely starting up again. It wasn’t pain, and he could deal, but it was a little distracting. He blanked his mind and didn’t think about where this could be heading; exhaustion carried him into sleep just fine.

He woke at two in the morning with a crawling burn permeating what felt like every cell of his body. Gasping, he sat up, trying to breathe deeply against the feeling. It wasn’t as bad as when Rodney had been off-world. Yet. But it was pretty bad, because it was everywhere, not localized at all, like most pain was.

Crap. This was unacceptable. He knew what would make it better, but there was no way in hell he was going to go looking for Rodney. No way. He sighed, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. This could get old really fast; had gotten old already. He shifted around on the bed, trying to get comfortable. He was tired enough; he should be able to sleep despite the pain.

An hour later, he was curled in on himself, still awake, the pain strangely mesmerizing as it shot new arcs of burning around his body. Just as he was about to get up, give up on sleep, his door whooshed open.

“You are such a stubborn idiot,” Rodney said from behind an armful of blankets and pillows.

John just stared at him as he laid out a nest on the floor. “Idiot,” Rodney repeated. “Stubborn.”

And yeah, he probably was, because the relief – it was like stepping into a cool lake after a day in the desert, or working in Antarctica after Afghanistan. All the burning was gone, the ache, too, except for the twisting feeling in his stomach, which had ratcheted another notch stronger. This thing was clamping like a vice, tighter and tighter, forcing them closer and closer. He hated it, the helpless feeling, knowing that this thing was working on his body right now, pushing him into a tighter orbit with Rodney. But it had been a really long few days and he was exhausted, so he pushed all that away for now and tried to relax into the absence of pain, the presence of Rodney just a few feet away.

“My back is never going to be the same. Tomorrow it’s you on the floor, that’s all I’m going to say,” Rodney huffed, settling into the cocoon-like nest he’d created. “And you’re getting the chiropractor bills. Not that they aren’t charlatans.”

Despite himself, John grinned into his pillow, and let the smile creep into his voice a little. “Fine, then.”

Rodney just huffed at him and pulled his cocoon closer. Long after Rodney had gone to sleep, John lay there in the dark staring at the ceiling listening to the sound of Rodney’s breathing. He lay there counting Rodney’s breaths and didn’t think, didn’t think, didn’t think.

When John woke, it was way past his normal time, and Rodney was snoring gently from under his blankets. He got up and hit the bathroom and took a shower, all the while studiously ignoring what his body was telling him; the radius had gotten smaller again. No matter how much he tried not to think about it, the evidence was irrefutable; the tugging was back, even though the distance between Rodney and himself was only about twenty feet.

He threw on clothes and stomped out of the bathroom, intending to wake Rodney and insist they go track down the cause of the – sickness – right now, but Rodney was already awake, and shot a look at him from the floor which told John that he was just as horrified at the possibilities here as John was. “Give me a minute,” Rodney said, determined look in his eyes. “Then we’re tracking this thing down. I don’t care what Keller says.” He looked grim.

John nodded. “Right.”

Keller had a lot to say, it turned out, and had the authority to enforce it. They cut a deal and agreed to stay in Atlantis until the detailed lab work would be available around midday, sending teams out in the meantime and supervising them remotely.

They worked out a deal where John spread out his paperwork on a table in Rodney’s lab for the first few hours, and then Rodney came with him to the gym. “Because god forbid you don’t work your delts for one day,” Rodney bitched, panting and sweating on the lat machine, his powerful back muscles clenching under his too-tight tee shirt.

It helped, a little, working out, pushing his body hard. It almost made him forget that if he got ten feet away from Rodney now, the tingling started up. Even after a workout that had him gasping for air and drenched, he felt like putting his fist through a wall, or into someone’s face. This galaxy just couldn’t leave him the fuck alone, and sometimes he got a little tired of it.

Four hours later, the teams were back in Atlantis, having retraced their steps on three planets. Princess Planet had yielded nothing, and the other two, where they’d had a drink in an inn and visited a museum without any other Lanteans, seemed to be dead-ends. Of course, the elephant in the room which no one was talking about was that they really had no clue what they were looking for. It wasn’t like you could walk up to people on a planet and ask them what it was that two of your people had been exposed to which caused them to need to be within a few meters of each other. Or rather, you could ask, but you were highly unlikely to get any information that was useful. Still, the teams had given it a valiant effort, and managed not to laugh about the situation in front of John and Rodney, for which John gave them major mental points. Of course, it might have helped that he’d stopped even pretending to have a sense of humor about it.

By the time the teams were back, both of them were feeling the tugging sensation unless they were within touching distance. Looking at Rodney’s grim face, John knew his genius-sized brain had reached the obvious conclusion; unless they figured this thing out fast, they’d have to be closer and closer, until –

No. He wasn’t going there, he just wasn’t. It was like some horrible Star Trek plot or some twisted soap opera, and he wasn’t going there. Just, no. Because he could see it coming, like it was playing out on a theater screen: the inevitable humiliation, the ramifications when it ended their friendship – or even if it didn’t end it, altered it forever into something awkward. Not to mention the fact that they would be ripped apart from the inside in the meantime.

Keller looked grim, too, when they checked in with her after lunch. Rodney’s biochemistry had come back weird like John’s, no surprise there, and no one else she’d tested – herself, Ronon, Teyla, a few marines - was showing any chemical changes.

“Alright, that’s it, we’re going to run this thing down ourselves,” Rodney said, and John for once agreed with him fully and wholeheartedly.

Keller shook her head. “I really don’t think the two of you should gate any more – we have no idea whether it’s even safe.” John didn’t want to punch the wall anymore, he wanted to hit Keller, which obviously, no, so he curled his hands into fists, let himself dig his fingernails into his palms a little until he could talk without yelling.

Fortunately, Rodney had no such compunctions. “Safe!” Rodney yelled. “Our cells are expanding from the inside, and it’s getting worse every minute. In no bizarre universe, even one devised by medical doctors, could what is happening to us now be described as safe, so I don’t really think that traveling by wormhole is going to do anything worse!”

“Rodney,” John said in a warning voice, agreeing with everything he had said. “Look,” he said, turning to Keller. “Are we contagious? Do we pose a danger to people if we go off world?”

“Well, no,” she said. “I’m pretty sure, no. I got the latest tests back just now, and there are no antibodies, no immune system reaction whatsoever – I’m pretty confident it’s nothing communicable. But I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to gate, or be away from here.”

“Yeah, well, sitting around here isn’t going to do us any good,” John said. “If we’re not a danger to others, we’re going.” Keller looked at him kind of funny, and he realized he’d been right in her face, gritting out the words. He forced himself to back off a step, ease his face into a neutral expression.

Rodney sent a grateful look in his direction, and Keller finally nodded, giving them analgesics and anti-inflammatories and a bunch of other things, as well as very detailed instructions on checking in. He let Rodney get briefed on all of that while he conveyed their plans to Sam and the team, and then they were off, visiting two planets where he and Rodney had visited places without other Lanteans. Nothing turned up on either of them, and Keller finally got Sam to order them back after dinner.

As the afternoon had worn on, Rodney’s face had taken on a taut, tense look, and John had no trouble knowing why, because what had been a mild tugging sensation earlier in the day had turned into a nagging painful burn unless he and Rodney were in very close proximity. John had to repeatedly fight the impulse to touch Rodney, just for a minute, to get a moment of relief. The escalation in sensation was apparent now; it seemed like he could feel an increase in pain hour by hour. He felt panic rippling around his edges; a deep, vast sea of it. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t that big a deal; he could touch people if he had to. If he wanted to, he corrected himself.

Partway through the briefing that evening, John looked down and discovered that his hand had reached out, without him even being aware of it, and his fingers were firmly wrapped around Rodney’s wrist. Their hands were hidden under the table, and only Keller and Sam and Teyla and Ronon were there, but – god. Rodney turned to look at him, his expression unreadable, and John wrenched his hand away. He closed his eyes against the wash of pain, heard Rodney’s little gasp next to him. Through the sharp ache, he could hear Sam telling everyone all about it, about cell expansion and decreasing radii and the implications.

Some part of him, angry and dark and reckless, wanted to throw it all back at them, challenge the studiously tolerant looks on their faces. Fuck it – they all knew about it anyway. He reached out and encircled Rodney’s wrist again, still under the table, but brazenly, radiating fuck-yous to the staff sitting around the table. Rodney stiffened when he made contact, but didn’t pry himself loose. See, he told himself. You can touch people just fine. No problem.

“So we need everyone in Atlantis to understand that they have to stay in contact at this point,” Keller was saying.

“Yes, because I need more humiliation in my life. I think we should announce it over everyone’s headsets right now. And be sure to put in there about how we have to sleep in the same – the same room,” Rodney snapped. John’s body, already tense, stiffened even more, and he felt Rodney throw him a sideways glance.

Keller pursed her lips. “We need people to understand that it’s not just a matter of bearing pain.” She looked straight at John. “It’s a matter of cellular harm, at least potentially. There is no choice. Until we can fix this, they have to minimize the damage.” She scanned the group at the table, then returned her gaze to John, then Rodney. “In whatever way necessary. Do I make myself clear?”

“Clear as mud,” John muttered, not missing the fact that Rodney was turning an unattractive shade of red. John’s stomach was so twisted up now he felt light-headed, and there was a tightness in his chest he knew wasn’t from the pain.

“Right, well, I for one am going to continue to search for the origin of this – this thing,” Rodney huffed, standing up suddenly, losing contact with John. He staggered and clutched the edge of the table, then gritted his teeth. “Are you coming?” he asked John.

“Not much choice,” John muttered, following behind Rodney as closely as possible without actually touching. Sweat was breaking out all over his body from the pain now, the lack of physical contact making it almost impossible to move. Rodney was breathing hard in front of him. As they tumbled onto the transporter, both of them reached for each other at the same time, hands tangling clumsily until they figured it out, Rodney’s hand encircling John’s wrist this time.

The relief was instant.

“What happens when this gets worse?” Rodney asked, voice rising on every word.

“Rodney,” John said. He could hear the steel in his own voice. He didn’t want to talk about it, he just didn’t. The relief caused by the absence of pain was counterbalanced by his anger. It felt like something inside him was tightening, tightening, compacting everything that was him, that was his own, into a tighter and tighter space.

“Fine. Denial is fine with me right now. Fine,” Rodney replied, moving a fraction closer to John, setting John’s teeth on edge even more.

Later, John moved his bedding down onto the floor next to Rodney without talking about it; waiting any longer would just be ridiculous. Uncharacteristically, Rodney didn’t say a word. When one of them used the bathroom, the other stood just outside the door, both of them gasping in pain. They tumbled down into the blankets together, neither of them looking at the other, coming to rest on their backs with their bodies touching along the sides of their arms, their calves.

John lay there looking at the ceiling for a long, long time, gritting his teeth against the urge to roll over onto Rodney, pull him close. With this amount of contact, there wasn’t any pain, not really, but there was an ache and a tug that made it difficult to relax. Plus, it wasn’t exactly conducive to sleep, lying this close to Rodney, who was radiating – something, maybe anger – right now.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Rodney huffed, rolling towards John and pulling him into a loose embrace.

John froze and started to pull away, but the sweet relief washing through him at the absence of the ache made it difficult. Rodney snorted. “No, just – just, no. I know you hate this. Touch and - . Well, agreed, but I can’t sleep, and you’re just going to have to deal with it, so just – just deal with it.” His voice wavered a little, and his hands on John were tentative, but he’d done what John couldn’t.

John was momentarily frozen. He was horrified that Rodney had seen, had put into words - . But Rodney tended to cut through bullshit, and yeah, right now John just had to deal with it. Despite himself, he felt a smile curling up his mouth a little at Rodney’s sheer blustering Rodney-ness. He could sense Rodney smiling, too, though how he didn’t know. He didn’t want to think about that, either.

“Okay,” John said, into Rodney’s arm. “Okay. But tomorrow morning, we’re going to all of the likely planets, every single one of them, until we figure it out.”

“Fine by me,” Rodney murmured. “Fine by me.”

John fell asleep in the next breath, working hard on not noticing how comforting it was to sleep in the circle of someone’s arms after all this time.

When he woke up in the middle of the night this time, it was to find himself pressed up against Rodney’s back. His arms were around Rodney’s warm bulk – the one under him asleep – and he’d obviously pressed in as tightly as he could in his sleep, his chest snugged right up against Rodney’s t-shirt-clad back, his legs mirroring Rodney’s. Some type of harsh twisting feeling flooded him, froze him momentarily into place. And then he had to pull in a sharp breath, because right, the humiliation was now complete; his hips were pressed right up against Rodney’s ass, and he was half-hard.

He was afraid to even breathe, and he pulled away as gently as he could, heart pounding, trying to watch for any telltale signs that Rodney was awake. He sucked in air once he had his dick away from Rodney’s warmth, then tried to wriggle his arm out from under him. Sure enough, Rodney stirred at that, making sleepy grumpy sounds that made John’s chest hurt a little.

“Just rearranging,” John whispered, his heart thumping wildly.

Rodney sighed and John pulled his arm out, pulled back a few inches so only his hands were touching Rodney, desperate to touch as little as possible. There was burning throughout his body once he’d done that – not a good sign at all, since it meant the radius had shrunk again.

“Closer,” McKay suddenly grumped, pulling on John’s arm. John lost his balance a little and half fell forward into McKay, avoiding actually pressing his cock against him at the last second. John felt his heart rate ratchet up again, adrenalin pumping through his body, felt his whole body freeze. A deep desperate panic flooded him. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him; he couldn’t fucking believe it.

Rodney sighed, a long-suffering, drawn-out sound, and turned over onto his back, leaving John scrambling to pull parts of his body away. “Look, Sheppard,” he said, quieter than he usually spoke. He turned and looked directly at John. In the slight moonlight coming in through the curtains, Rodney’s eyes glowed a dark silver blue. His hair was sticking up around his face and his expression was softer than it usually was. “Look. We’re – we’re friends, okay? And – and professionals. If something – it’s okay, whatever. This all, the Pegasus - ” He motioned vaguely between them with his hand “ – This all stays here. There are certain physiological – well. Everything.” His eyes darted away from John.

John couldn’t speak, couldn’t move for a second. Was Rodney saying he’d felt John, up against him like that? Or was he just saying that the having to hug thing was pretty bad in and of itself and they should both deal with it like professionals? Whatever Rodney was saying, John felt warmed for a minute by this part of Rodney, the part that he rarely showed to people – the part that did things, said things sometimes, necessary things, kind things - even when he was scared out of his mind, even though most of the time Rodney was the very opposite of kind.

His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears when he said, “Okay. Right. Same.”

“Good. So just – .” Rodney turned all the way over on his side to face John and pulled him in against his body, though not at the hips, just so their legs were touching below their thighs and at their chests. John couldn’t help the little sigh of relief at the sudden absence of most of the pain, and Rodney’s answering relieved breath stirred his hair.

If he thought about it, he’d freak out even harder than he already was, so he clamped down hard on his brain, forcing it to go blank – something he’d had lots of practice at for a lot of years. It was going to be hard enough to put their friendship back on its easy footing after this experience – hard enough, without him letting any of this get to him. For tonight, though, there was no choice, so he let himself relax slightly, to a point, let the smell of Rodney’s warm male body next to him sink in, let the feel of Rodney’s breath on the side of his face calm him into matching breaths. He told himself there was no harm in any of that, even as an insistent voice, deep-buried, whispered that this was more dangerous than anything.

Burning pain woke him up, gasping. He called, “Rodney!” just as Rodney emerged from the bathroom, flushed rosy and hair wet, doubled over and panting, towel around his waist.

“Sorry,” Rodney gasped, crouching down to touch John’s shoulder, leaning into him and breathing hard. “Just had to get a shower. Bad idea. Let it go too long.” Rodney’s hair was wet and curling, and there were drops of water on his long eyelashes. He’d put on a lot of muscle over the past few years; his arms and shoulders were corded with it now.

“It’s alright,” John said, the morning hour making his voice low. Rodney was crouched over him, and a drop of water fell from his hair onto John’s cheek. Just like that, Rodney’s big hand was on his face, his thumb swiping his face gently, wiping it off.

“Sorry,” Rodney murmured.

John swallowed. “It’s okay,” he managed, not moving, not sure whether Rodney was apologizing for the water, or the hand, or the whole situation; waiting for Rodney to lift his hand, or move away. He ticked off three seconds in his own head before Rodney removed his hand from his face and moved it to his arm. John was shaky standing up, and made quick work of the bathroom. This time, Rodney raised an eyebrow in a silent question and John nodded, because the pain was getting really unbearable now if they weren’t touching in some way. Rodney came in right after John finished pissing, and put his hand on the back of John’s neck while he brushed his teeth, after an obvious second of trying to figure out where to touch. It was weird as hell, but the relief was major; it’d been all John could do to stay standing against the deep sharp ache that now throbbed through him when they weren’t in contact.

Sam set her jaw when they came to talk to her, Rodney’s hand wrapped tightly around John’s forearm, body edged right up against his side. She was ready to be stubborn about letting them out of Atlantis, John could see it, so he let a little of his desperation show in his voice. He was pretty sure he’d do almost anything to run down the cause of this thing, and he didn’t exactly try to hide that. Rodney was unusually quiet. She agreed to it, finally, acceding to John’s argument that since they were the only ones affected, maybe they were the only ones who’d be able to find the origin. She insisted that Keller go with them, along with the rest of their team.

Keller had figured out a way to monitor the status of their cells every few hours, and ended up bringing what looked like half the infirmary with her. The way John figured it, he’d just as soon have Keller and his team as the only witnesses to where this was looking like it was going to end up - with him and Rodney plastered all over each other. And if they didn’t figure out a solution, they weren’t going to be much use to anyone, anyway. He could feel it even now, a light burn permeating his body, despite Rodney’s hand wrapped tightly around his arm. He briefly let himself wonder what it felt like to die in agony of your cells expanding, but with a lifetime’s worth of practice at shutting down unhelpful lines of thought, he stopped himself before he let it get too far along. It wouldn’t be good, he knew that, and he double-checked to make sure he had a couple of choices of weapons with him, just in case. Theoretically, they could go into stasis until some solution was discovered, but he’d learned a long time ago that it was best to be prepared for anything.

Keller had tried various remedies on them: cellular-level anti-inflammation protocols, various immune system boosters, even some allergy stuff, but nothing did a thing, and it was obvious to all three of them that the radius was shrinking dramatically. Finally she had decided that she’d exhausted all the possible cures medical science had to offer, barring a few years of research.

They visited three planets in three hours, talking with officials at the places the two of them had been alone, John’s desperation growing with each raised eyebrow on each world. By this point, the pain was so intense that if he and Rodney weren’t touching, they both doubled over, gasping for air. Keller gave them injections of a drug cocktail she’d made of some super-analgesic and anti-inflammatories that helped a little, and John used the brief opportunity right after the meds hit to take a crap, something he’d been inordinately worried about – somehow that seemed more of a violation of privacy than just about anything he could think of. She wouldn’t do it again for eight hours, though, she told them, no matter what. It was too dangerous, because regular pain relievers did nothing, and she’d had to use something intense. In her words, they’d “just have to suck it up and hold onto each other;” not something John really wanted to be hearing from a doctor, or anyone, since who held him and who he held was not something he wanted anyone talking about, ever.

Finally, on MCX-790, where they’d visited a temple while Ronon and Teyla negotiated with some farmers, they hit pay dirt. The head priestess smiled as she looked at them. By this point, John was clutching Rodney’s arm while Rodney clutched his, both of their hands wrapped around each other’s wrists in some strange parody of handcuffs. Though they hadn’t talked about it at all, each of them were obviously desperate to avoid the stabbing pain that would result if they stopped touching.

“I see the Peace has taken you,” the priestess said, continuing to smile.

John drew a breath to yell, but Rodney beat him to it. “The Peace? So that’s what you call torture on your planet, is that it? Are you so - .”

Keller elbowed in front of Rodney. “So what do we do to stop it? It’s getting worse by the minute.”

“Stop it?” The priestess looked ironically amused, like so many priests and priestesses in the Pegasus. “It is a gift from the Ancients – the gift of Peace.”

John couldn’t keep the semi-growl from leaving his lips. “If this is Peace, I’d hate to see your version of war.”

The priestess turned, clear-eyed, to John. “That is something you know much about - conflict.” John’s stomach clenched. No way was this turning into something about him.

Rodney had been spluttering, but finally broke out in words. “Leave him alone, you, you torturer. Give us back our bodies!”

The priestess smiled serenely. “The Peace is not something I could alter even if I wished to, not that I would ever deign to alter what the Ancients impose.”

“F.Y.I, Priestess,” Rodney spat, “This isn’t exactly Peace for us – it’s ripping our bodies apart. And as much as I enjoy the Colonel’s company, being welded at the hip isn’t exactly something I aspire to!”

Despite the nausea churning in his gut, John felt his mouth lifting into a smile. God, no one could ream someone out like Rodney, and it was beautiful to behold. He fought the smile down and tried to look quietly menacing. It wasn’t difficult; he was really getting sick of these Pegasus fortune tellers and priestesses and shaman who made enigmatic wise-sounding pronouncements that showed they’d been rooting around in his head.

The priestess shook her head. “I am truly sorry that you are undergoing pain right now. But the Peace is visited on all who touch the Ancient Star, as the two of you did, should it see into your hearts as Leaders and prescribe its Peace. It doesn’t happen all that often,” she added. “It is an honor.”

Rodney spluttered, and John opened his mouth, but this time it was Teyla who spoke. She and Ronon had been mainly quiet all day, a silent supportive presence. “You speak of Leaders. Does the – the Star have something to do with leadership, then?”

“Why yes, of course,” the Priestess cooed. “For those who lead, but who have conflict, it brings Peace.”

“Well, we certainly both lead, can’t argue with that,” Rodney said, as John rolled his eyes. “But we’re not in conflict.” He shot a glance at John and narrowed his eyes. “Most of the time.”

With a sinking feeling, John suddenly remembered their visit here in detail. They’d been arguing over something – he couldn’t even remember what – but that wasn’t unusual, that was just what they did. He remembered a few priests shooting them odd looks as their argument continued inside the Temple, and he remembered telling Rodney to cool it, but then Rodney had said something about Spock and he’d said something about Han, and yeah, they’d probably been arguing inside a fucking temple for god’s sake.

He could feel Rodney next to him, drawing a breath to heap more invective on the Priestess, so he pushed in front of him, careful to maintain his hold of his arm. “We’re at peace now. It’s worked, see? So how do we go about getting the thing out of us? Or stop whatever’s causing it?”

The Priestess shook her head. “The Star is only satisfied when the Leaders have reached Ultimate Peace, of course. Only when they have become One will the Peace take hold.”

“Ultimate Peace? What is this, some bad hippie movie? What the hell does that mean?” Rodney snapped, despite John’s hand gripping hard on his arm.

John’s stomach roiled and his throat tried to close up. The fingers of his free hand curled instinctively around his P-90. He had a sickening feeling he understood exactly what the Priestess meant, since this thing had been pushing them inexorably closer. God damn this galaxy to hell. “Wait!” John croaked. “Everyone out of here. Rodney and I will take it from here.”

“Are you insane?” Rodney asked. “Has that hair finally overridden your higher brain functions? Keller, tell him he’s insane.”

Keller had an appraising look on her face. John managed to meet her eyes when she turned toward him, though it wasn’t easy. He raised an eyebrow in what he hoped came off as a beseeching way and she nodded slightly.

Keller turned to the Priestess. “What guarantee do we have, if they do this, that this syndrome will be gone?”

The Priestess smiled. “You may consult our records if you wish. Here - .” She handed Keller a booklet she pulled out of her robe’s pocket. “All of these people, each of them were completely free of the Peace once they joined.”

Keller leafed through the booklet. “But these dates – they go back centuries.”

“As I said,” the Priestess replied.

Keller turned to John and Rodney. “There’s no way to know if these entries are authentic. But if they are - .”

John nodded at her, and Keller continued. “Okay, yeah, let’s leave them here for a few minutes. They’ll be fine,” she said to Ronon and Teyla. At the door, she stopped to add, “In fact – in fact, maybe they should stay overnight, see if the – if the Peace can be lifted? And I’ll stay here, too?” She looked a question at John. “Nearby,” she amended quickly, flushing a little.

“Good idea,” he said, nodding, trying to push everything down, push everything not mission-critical into a tight ball and bury it deep inside. If this was what was going to have to happen, better it happen here, off-world, where no one on Atlantis had to know, and where they could write it off as something not relevant to Atlantis. He was guessing they’d need that, big time. Though of course, way too many people were going to know about this anyway. Including Rodney; most especially Rodney. He fought off a wave of vertigo and something that felt like regret. Their friendship - . He couldn’t believe this was happening to them; he couldn’t believe it was happening to him. He felt shocky and a little shaky, and he knew the whole thing was only going to get worse, since he couldn’t stop picturing that decreasing radii diagram he’d drawn not very long ago.

After Keller and the team left, Rodney turned to face John, still not letting go of his wrist. “You are insane. Need I remind you that these people are lunatics, who put curses on people for criticizing Spock?” It was clear he hadn’t understood what they had to do.

“Rodney,” John said, voice low.

“What?” Rodney grumped.

“Rodney.” John made himself hold Rodney’s eyes. He had a feeling his voice sounded weird; the panic was full-out now, rising up into his throat and choking him.

John saw it the second Rodney caught up and figured out what the Priestess was talking about – a flash of something John couldn’t decipher in his eyes. “Oh, no. No, no, no! Priestess! You!” Rodney snapped the fingers of his free hand at the serene presence still standing with them. “There is no way, no way in hell we’re going to do that. So just think of something else right now.”

The Priestess sighed. “It’s the gift of the Ancients. I didn’t cause it – you did, by being in the presence of the Star; Leaders, not in harmony. I cannot turn it off, because it is now inside you. Your bodies will need to be closer and closer, the pain will grow and grow, until you reach Peace. That is all. Generations of Leaders have done this before you. Are you so special that you cannot undertake this simple thing?”

Rodney spluttered, “But, we’re friends! And we work together. And – and furthermore - “ he darted a quick glance at John – “we’re both guys! Men!”

“Many Leaders are,” the Priestess responded. “Of what relevance – oh. I see in your culture this is unusual, reaching for Peace with someone of the same gender? Well, we’ve certainly come across that before, though it’s unusual – usually it’s some other objection. Regardless, whether partnered or not, old or young, male or female, the Star finds you, not the other way around. Now, I am busy. You may have the dwelling across the courtyard ” - she gestured with a graceful hand in the direction they'd entered - “for as long as you need. Temple servants will provide food and drink at the rising of the sun and its setting.” She looked grave. "Though I doubt you will have time for such concerns. You came here very late in the process."

The Priestess looked straight into John's eyes, and something crawled in his stomach. She said, quietly urgent, “What is required of you is penetration. One into the other. Mutual release. Barrier devices are acceptable; the mechanism is the Joining itself.” She gave John a small smile. “I wish you Peace.” She turned and began walking toward the door.

Rodney took in a harsh breath, sputtered, “But that’s ridiculous, the whole thing’s ridiculous! What about two female leaders? They can’t do that!”

The Priestess turned and looked at Rodney for a long moment. “The Star chooses its Peace. Penetration of some sort is usually required. However, the purpose is Joining; the method is individually prescribed.”

“Well, how convenient that you’re the one who magically knows its pervy will!” Rodney said loudly.

The Priestess, astoundingly, smiled. “Given that if you don’t get it right you die, yes, yes I’d say that is convenient.” She turned toward the door again.

Rodney made as if to stop her, but John pulled firmly on his arm. “McKay.”

When he turned back to John, Rodney’s face was white. “There’s got to be another way.”

“I’m not exactly thrilled about this either, Rodney,” he said, ruthlessly blocking out the images the Priestess’s words had brought to mind. He lowered his voice. “Look, there’s always a way out of these things, so what say we just let the nice Priestess be on her way, and then you can get to work figuring out - ”

“Gentlemen,” the Priestess’s voice cut in from where she stood by the door. “We will all leave the Temple now.” She sighed when they didn’t move. “In the past, people have attempted to alter the Star to lift its Blessing. None of them survived the attempt.” She looked at their faces closely, sighed again, and added, “There are defenses. Our Temple Guard, and Ancient defenses, which are foolproof. The sooner you come to terms with this, the easier it will be on you. If you wait too long, the pain will be too much, and you will not be able to join.”

John quickly ran an appraising glance around the Temple interior, and could see Rodney looking for any evidence of machinery or technical equipment. Now that he realized what he was looking at, he saw Ancient weapons systems and spy equipment and sensors and - . A lot of stuff he was salivating to get his hands on, frankly. But effective stuff, definitely.

When the Temple guard appeared suddenly, as if out of thin air, their movements telegraphing martial artistry and competence, he shook his head at Rodney just as Rodney was doing the same at him. “Never mind,” he bit out. They’d have to bring in a full strike force to take the place, kill a bunch of natives, and this thing still would be rearranging them from the inside. His gut told him the Priestess was telling the truth; his gut told him they had a short time to live unless they did one little thing. In the scheme of things, it was little. In the Pegasus, it was tiny. No big deal, really. It didn’t have to be a big deal.

As the Priestess led them out of the building and left them in front of the little hut, the tight-wound panic that had been clenching his stomach for days battered against him in waves. His heart was pounding in a sickly rhythm and the twisting in his stomach was shooting waves of nausea up his throat. He broke out in a sweat, and he wanted to grab the Priestess by the throat and kill her slowly.

Rodney squeezed John’s arm gently. “You okay?

What the hell was he supposed to say to that? “Just peachy,” he managed, bitterness lacing his words. He supposed he was obligated to say something back. “You?”

Rodney took a breath behind him. “Unlike you, I’m enjoying my cells engaging in thermonuclear warfare,” he spat out.

John nodded and didn’t look at him. Keller was approaching them now, worried expression on her face. John started explaining, haltingly, and then Rodney broke in. “Oh, god, at this rate we’ll be dead before he explains. We have to join. That’s the solution, the way to their fucking Peace. Pun intended.” Rodney laughed bitterly.

“I think we all get that you don’t want to do this, Rodney,” John gritted out. “It’s not exactly my idea of a fun vacation, either,” he said, as Keller looked worriedly between them.

“Neither of you look very good,” Keller said.

“Yeah. Feeling like shit, actually,” John breathed, pressing a little more of his arm against Rodney to get some relief from the pain which was intensifying yet again. Soon it was going to be impossible to stand up, and very soon after that, he’d be rolled into a ball in the fetal position.

Keller nodded. “Did she actually say -? I mean, did she say it actually had to be that, you know – or could it be something a little less than that, sort of third base or something?” She winced as the words came out of her mouth, held up her hand. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault, good question,” John replied, before Rodney could say something worse. “Yes, it has to be - that.”

She nodded. “Well, I think there are two choices, really. One, come back to Atlantis and I’ll set you up in the infirmary, get as much pain med into you as possible, put you in stasis if necessary, continue to research a cure. Two - .” She sighed and pointedly did not look at the door of the nearby hut.

John forced himself to look at Rodney, who lifted his chin and looked steadily into John’s eyes, with his forcing-myself-to-be-brave look. “What do you - ?” John said, voice a little shaky, though hopefully they couldn’t tell.

Rodney swallowed visibly. “Not much choice, is there? There never is, out here.” He sounded defeated and angry. This was already fucking things up, and John fought an urge to shoot up the temple with his P-90.

John nodded slowly. There really wasn’t any choice. Even if Atlantis could do without him, it couldn’t do without Rodney. There were people at risk – lots of them – in this galaxy and back at home, and everyone was needed in the fight against the Wraith and the Replicators. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his own cowardice put them out of commission. It didn’t have to be a big thing. He ignored his sweating hands, the nausea twisting his insides up, the ache in his chest.

“Look, Keller, how about this. We’ve got to sleep anyway. Rodney and I will bunk here tonight. Maybe it’ll go away. How’s that?” He had a feeling he wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all her, but it gave them all plausible deniability.

She nodded. “Okay, and I’ll stay here, too – the Priestess offered, so I’ll be across the way if you need me.” She pointed at another, similar, hut, which John was relieved to see was at least a hundred yards from where they’d be sleeping. Or not sleeping, god. “I’ll send Ronon and Teyla home – they can come back tomorrow.”

Even in the last few minutes, the pain had intensified yet again, though they were now pressed up against each other, Rodney behind him, clinging onto both of his arms with his hands. Rodney was taking shaky deep breaths against it in his ear, and his own breathing had become labored. It felt like knives now, knives working their way through his skin, his tissues, his organs. No choice, just like Rodney said, because that’s how things were out here. No choice, and before you knew it, you’d done something that would fuck you up the rest of your life.

“Right,” he said, and then there was even more horror, because Keller stopped them, hand on John’s arm, and fumbled a tube and some packets into his hand. “If you - .”

John shuddered and Rodney went still behind him.

Keller pressed her lips together. “Look, I’m a doctor, so I’m not going to let myself not talk about this, though it’s tempting.” She stood up straighter. “There’s protection, because you’ve probably both been sexually active, and you shouldn’t - .”

“Keller,” John grated out.

“I know, I know,” she said, “but it’s my job. Now, listen. I’ve worked with situations that make this seem like Janie-and-Billy-have-missionary-position-sex, okay? So just, just let me know if you need anything, or anything goes wrong. Are either of you experienced with this? You know what to do?”

Rodney snorted behind John, and despite himself, John’s mouth curled a little in shared admiration of Keller. “I think we’ll manage,” he gritted out.

“Because I can download stuff about prepar- .”

“Keller!” they both said at the same time.

“We’ll be okay,” John said, loading his voice with sincerity. “We’re good. Really. Right, Rodney?”

Behind him, Rodney snorted. “No problemo. Seriously.”

“Okay then,” she said, obviously reluctant to let them go.

John caught her eyes again, nodding as sincerely as he could manage. Behind him, Rodney said, “Going now,” and yeah, they really needed to, because the pain had ratcheted even higher during the few minutes of their conversation, so he nodded at her briskly one last time and led the way to the small stone structure the Priestess had pointed out.

He grimaced as they crossed the threshold, seeing a large pallet laid out inside, some toilet facilities behind a little partition.

“Oh, great, Club Med for Peace-seekers,” Rodney said, too loudly, body leaning into John’s more thoroughly even as his voice dripped with sarcasm.

John didn’t say anything, taking in the dark space, the damp smell, the none-too-clean mattress on the floor. What difference did it make anyway, he told himself, disgusted at the part of him which was acting like it mattered. Jesus. Even as they stood there, he could feel the sharp twisting under his skin intensifying to yet another level; he had to pant for air for a second. Soon, he knew, he’d do anything for it to be gone, or at least for Rodney’s pain to be gone, because Rodney’s little bitten-off gasps were doing something to him, like every time Rodney was in jeopardy and he couldn’t do anything about it.

John had been in pain a lot of times in his life, and he knew he could resist torture, to a point, if there was a reason – if his people were at stake. But in a situation like this, where giving in meant Rodney wouldn’t die in agony? Yeah, this was going only one place. A place that he wasn’t going to think about beforehand, and wouldn’t think about afterwards.

In his ear, Rodney sucked in a harsh breath, pressed a little closer. “Look, Sheppard, I think we both know what’s got to happen. So unless you wanted to place a call to room service first?”

John shook his head minutely, temporarily unable to move or talk, frozen there on the threshold.

“Look, Sheppard, John,” Rodney’s voice came, softer now in his ear. “On second thought, maybe we should go back, get hyped on some of Keller’s drugs, see if she can figure something out.”

John took a breath and shook his head, forced the words out, said to the wall, “No point. Already tried that. This is the only way. Besides, they need us functional. Atlantis.”

“Yeah, functional. Not dead from cell explosion is good, too. So - ?” Rodney’s voice broke a little, and John turned instinctively toward him. The second it took to turn, being out of contact, was agony, and they both gasped at the same time, grabbing onto each other’s biceps.

“Jesus,” John breathed, feeling light-headed from the bolt of pure agony that had rocketed up his spine, through his vital organs, flooded him.

“Yeah,” Rodney panted, pulling John closer into a loose embrace, then closer still. “Just. Since it basically feels like being flayed from the inside, you need to not let go,” Rodney said quietly, face turned carefully to the side away from John’s.

John’s throat felt tight, but he nodded slightly. “You think we should - ?” He managed, hating himself for not stepping up and taking full responsibility, but needing some more buy-in, needing to know what Rodney was thinking.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Rodney snapped, practically spitting into John’s face. “Because dying from having our cells ripped apart from the inside in a freakish and excruciatingly painful way is preferable to having sex once. Haven’t we been over this already?”

“Well, excuse me for wanting to make sure we’re on the same page on this,” John said, trying to keep his voice from going louder like it wanted to. “We have to work together after this, you know.”

Rodney laughed, but not the amused kind. “Believe me, Sheppard, I’m fully aware of the undoubtedly awkward and humiliating aftermath this is likely to entail. I just hope it’s worth it – I hope it works.” He sighed, a heartfelt sound, and part of John wanted to lean in, lean their foreheads together and - . But that wasn’t what this was about. He didn’t want to fuck up their friendship any more than this was already going to fuck it up, because this friendship meant - .

With the willpower of a trained soldier, with the benefit of a lifetime of practice, he shut down that line of thought, too. If this had to happen, it was best it happen with as little emotion as possible, so there was some chance of them being able to look at each other, ever again.

Maybe he could at least offer Rodney something, though, because he could tell that underneath the bluster, Rodney was scared, scared that despite everything, he was headed for a messy and painful death. He had to clear his throat and exert all his will to make himself talk, but he did it, said quietly, “Decreasing radius spirals – they’re a bitch. Easy to stall or worse.” He came to a dead stop, couldn’t force any more words out.

Rodney snorted, pulled back a little to look into John’s face. “You’re analogizing to flying stunts?”

Despite everything, John felt a smile quirk up the corner of his mouth. He found more words somehow. “Yeah, I am, because, wanna know the only way to keep a plane flying through a decreasing radius turn?”

“Yes, yes I’m dying for that particular piece of information right now,” Rodney huffed against John’s neck.

John swallowed. “You have to steepen the bank – turn the plane more toward the vertical.”

“I know what steepen the bank means, I’m not a moron,” Rodney grumped. It was a measure of how bad a situation this was that John found his tone comforting.

“Right, anyway, so you actually have to steepen the bank and decrease your speed. Scary as shit, trust me, when you’re doing it, because it feels so wrong, but that’s how you live through a decreasing radius turn.” He stopped, shocked that all those words had left his mouth. He didn’t even know what he was trying to do.

But maybe Rodney did, because he said, “So you’re saying that since it works for flyboy insane people, it will probably work for us. This.”

“Yeah, I guess,” John said, out of words now, feeling like he might throw up any minute.

“Okay,” Rodney said. There was silence for quite a while. John could feel Rodney’s exhales on the side of his face, a damp patch on Rodney’s back where he’d sweat through his shirt, could hear Rodney’s rasping breaths near his ear.

After a bit, he forced himself to look at Rodney again, who had his chin up in that way that meant he was determined to do something, no matter how scary. In that way they had of communicating without words, they both nodded slightly at each other.

“How - ?” Rodney’s voice was more tentative now, and John shut his eyes. When it came down to it, the responsibility was his – military leader, leader on hard stuff, wasn’t it? He wished that for once it could be someone else who stepped forward to make the tough call, someone else who had to say the hard things. But this was his job, even though it seemed absurd to be saying that about a situation like this one.

He gritted his teeth and opened his eyes again. Rodney’s face had an expression he couldn’t decipher, and that was saying something, because he thought he knew all of Rodney’s expressions by now.

“Who - ?” Rodney flushed.

John hadn’t let himself think this through, but he knew instantly, as if he had, what had to happen – all his instincts told him that it was the only chance they had for Rodney ever being able to work with him again. He didn’t know if he could say it, and he probably looked pretty grim, but he grabbed Rodney tighter and pulled him down to the mattress in one swift move so they were sitting awkwardly, sides touching, then dug in his pocket for the supplies Keller had provided, eyes cast down and away from Rodney’s. Without words, keeping as much of their bodies in contact as possible against the pain, he pressed a condom into Rodney’s hand, which, he noticed, was trembling faintly. Rodney stared at it for a second and swallowed, then met John’s eyes. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

John nodded once, trying to seem very sure. He silently begged Rodney with his eyes not to ask about it, not to try to talk about it for god’s sake, just accept. Asking too much, of course, because Rodney took a breath and was about to start asking questions, so John gritted out, “My job. I’m sure.”

Rodney bit his lip and looked at him, obviously trying to decide whether to argue – though on what grounds, John couldn’t imagine. Shut up, shut up, shut up, John said in his head to Rodney, willing him to, for once, let something be.

Of course McKay couldn’t do it, couldn’t keep silent, and he said, “I can – ,” but John growled, “Just shut up, McKay,” and miracle of miracles, Rodney did, pressing his lips tightly together and giving John a look – a look he couldn’t decipher, but that looked as much like resignation as anything.

Rodney fumbled the packet and it fell onto the mattress. He stared at it a second, then looked at John again and brought his free hand towards John’s face. It was shaking, and he was biting his lip, but it was aimed straight at John’s temple, maybe to brush his hair back, or stroke him, or just touch. Suddenly, John couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand what was happening, couldn’t bear the thought of McKay feeling that he needed to turn this into something it wasn’t.

He pulled back from Rodney’s hand before it touched him, nodded toward the condom packet and growled, “Put it on. Let’s just do this,” retrieving the tube of lube from his own pocket in the meantime, fighting the pain that not touching all over was causing at this point.

Rodney pressed his lips together hard, stopping his hand awkwardly mid-journey to John’s face, then nodded once and reached down for his own zipper.

Desperate from the flaring electric arcs shooting through his body, John grabbed Rodney’s bicep again, feeling, almost against his will, the shift of Rodney’s arm muscles under his hand. Grimly, he used his other hand to slide his own zipper down, keeping his face averted from Rodney’s.

And then he stopped, because how the hell were they going to get their pants off, get themselves prepared, while still touching, if they weren’t going to be, well, touching? Rodney must have realized the problem at the same time, said, “Because it’s not humiliating enough, we’re going to have to take turns.”

Could it get any worse? John really didn’t think so, but he blanked his mind as much as he could and nodded slightly, gritting his teeth. Rodney held onto him as John fumbled at his boots and his pants, sliding everything off, boxers too. He felt his cheeks heat, but he studiously avoided looking at Rodney, then reached for him in turn, keeping contact with his upper body while Rodney twisted out of everything on his bottom half. Under his eyelashes, he caught glimpses of the powerful thighs he’d seen before, a dusting of curly hair, an average pink cock, maybe a little fuller than flaccid, but no way to tell how big or thick it would be - .

John forced his thoughts back again, wrenching himself back to the problem at hand. Nothing else mattered –nothing mattered at all. And really, it was getting bad now. Even holding onto Rodney with both hands wasn’t enough to keep the pain at bay. It felt like little needles now, electric needles, but it also felt achy, in a bad way – the way that meant cells were expanding, pushing past the limits of what they were designed to do. He was glad Keller was nearby, because if this didn’t work, they were going to be in serious trouble.

Some part of him wanted to ask whether Rodney had ever done this before with a woman, but he stopped himself in time, because – because, well, obvious. Any talk about anything like that could only go to a bad place, like pretty much any talking at this point. Besides, what difference did it make; it wasn’t rocket science, on either side of the equation. But things were going to get intimate here in just a second and – god. He grabbed the tube of lube, too tight, with one hand, and Rodney must have understood at some level, because he held onto John, pressing closer, so more of their upper bodies were touching, so John could let go and unscrew the cap, push some out into his hand.

“Do you want me to - ?” Rodney’s voice, muffled against his shoulder, tentative-sounding. What the hell was he offering? There was no way in hell he was offering to open John up, that was for sure, so John just grunted, “Don’t look.”

Rodney snorted into his shoulder. “Well, that’s rich. Given what we’re about to do, unless we want our bodies exploding from the inside, it seems a bit maidenish, but whatever, closing my eyes now.”

John gritted his teeth against Rodney’s obvious attempt to keep things sarcastic like normal, and reached a hand down, breached himself with a finger, then two, trying to tell his body yes, it needed to relax, it was okay, this was something people did sometimes and it would be fine.

Rodney, miraculously, was quiet – John could almost feel him huffily keeping his eyes scrunched shut. But there was no way Rodney wasn’t feeling every twist of John’s arm, the muscles cording as he tried to make himself ready, his body almost in a crunch as he stretched to reach where he needed to. After a while, he figured it was enough or it wasn’t, and there wasn’t anything more he could do. The pain had ratcheted again – now, even with Rodney plastered to his side, arms wrapped awkwardly across his chest, he had to bite his lip to not groan at the stabbing permeating his body.

Rodney was feeling it, too, he could tell – sweat was soaking through both of their shirts, and his breathing was fast, shallow, in John’s ear. “I don’t know if I can – “ Rodney mumbled into John’s ear, and John felt a stab of anger, because shit, if he could do this, Rodney damn well could, and he let it show in his voice when he grated back, “You can fucking do it, McKay,” wincing after the fact at the word choice.

He felt Rodney’s arms stiffen around him. Then Rodney spit, “Well excuse me if it’s not actually a turn-on, this situation,” and John realized, stomach clenching, that he’d misunderstood, that Rodney was probably struggling to get an erection – obviously being with a guy, with him, wasn’t doing it for him.

“Think about someone blond and female,” he grated, horrified at the humiliation they were having to undergo.

“That’s not the - . Right,” Rodney said, huffing again into John’s ear. John silently switched their positions so now he was draped across Rodney from the side while Rodney picked up and then struggled with the condom packet.

“Now you close your eyes,” Rodney said, his tone impossible to read.

John did, and tried to blot out the knowledge of what Rodney’s hands were doing – first quietly stripping his own cock a couple of times, then gently easing the condom on. “How – ?” Rodney’s voice was subdued now, like the full weight of this had finally occurred to him, or maybe because the pain was flaring even harder.

“Like this,” John managed, rolling onto his stomach. He thought he had it worked out, but somehow they weren’t touching, and the bolt of agony that seared through him had him gasping, nauseous, fisting his hands into the material underneath him, biting back a scream. Rodney yelled, “Jesus!” scrabbling to crawl on top of John, panting into his hair when he did, “Be careful, Jesus, that’s worse than anything I’ve felt so far. There’s no way this thing isn’t ripping us up inside.”

Rodney was lying on top of John now, every inch of him touching some part of John. The relief was huge – the pain brought down to a manageable level again, more of an ache. There were miles of Rodney’s skin touching his, and even where there wasn’t skin, he felt Rodney’s warm weight through their shirts, the heat of his skin through the layers. Rodney’s face was on John’s neck, and he felt Rodney’s breath, slowing a little, but still rapid, felt Rodney’s chest expand on each breath against his back, knew that if he moved, just a fraction of an inch, Rodney’s lips would be on his skin. It felt – weird – having a heavy male body on top of him like that. Weird.

And he felt Rodney’s cock, now definitely harder than it had been before. The lessening of the pain had probably helped, plus the thinking about blondes. And heck, being naked and pressed against a body did that to any guy. John felt Rodney’s dick pressing against his ass cheek, and he had to suck in a harsh breath against the feeling, the knowledge of what was going to happen any minute. Rodney seemed to suddenly realize that he was lying on top of a guy naked, and scrambled to push himself up and away from John’s body, fortunately stopping with most of their bodies still touching – the recent flare of pain was a powerful teacher. Still, even though he’d pulled only his hips up and off, the pain increased tenfold. John gasped into the mattress, and Rodney groaned, “Holy shit. The rate is exponential in spades – pretty soon I don’t think I’m going to be able to function at all unless we’re - .”

John grimaced into the sheets. “Rodney.”

“Alright, I know, I get it,” Rodney panted into John’s hair. “Push up,” he said, pulling a little at John’s hip. John did, moving carefully this time, pushing his hips up off the mattress, pushing up to his arms. Rodney carefully eased himself down on John so they were touching along as much skin as possible. His cock had become softer, probably from the pain or the non-blondness of John, but even as John thought it, he could feel Rodney hardening a little against his ass.

Rodney’s hand landed on John’s hip, and then everything got very quiet, and he suddenly became aware – really aware – of their positions, the situation, the fact that he was on all fours, that Rodney was poised behind him, naked in the way that mattered, ready to push inside John’s body, in a parody of one of the most intimate things people could do. “Do you, that is - ?” Rodney asked, voice quavery, then said, before John could even consider whether to respond, or sort what the question was, “No, no, forget it, irrelevant, we’re not talking about it, not me, and not you, definitely no, sorry,” and then John felt Rodney’s cock, hard against him, and Rodney said, in a completely different voice, harder, “Last chance.”

John swallowed, because yeah, and managed, “I’m good,” and then Rodney was pushing in, slowly but firmly, cock hard, thank goodness, so obviously the blond woman thing had worked. It hurt a little, and Rodney was pretty big when he was hard, or at least it sure felt that way, and it wasn’t going to work, and then suddenly his body relaxed a little, and it did work, and Rodney was inside him, pushed deep. Now, even joined like this, incipient pain was licking around the edges of John’s consciousness, making him sweat and bite his lip. It was obviously exponential, the rate of increase, and they were reaching the end of the line on what their bodies could take.

Rodney panted, “Pain’s coming back soon,” and John just nodded, said, “Do it,” and then Rodney was pulling back, still gentle, then pushing back in, not so gentle, and then he was fucking him, still restrained, but hard and deep. Rodney murmured, “You okay?” and John didn’t let himself laugh, because okay was not a word he’d use to describe how he was doing right now, but he appreciated the gesture, said, “Yeah. Fine.” It felt weird, but it was fine.

John couldn’t believe this was actually happening – he kept drifting off to somewhere other than this tawdry hut, then being pulled back to reality. His brain, when he let himself think about what was happening, seemed to be stuck in some loop – cock inside me, Rodney, cock inside me, Rodney. Mainly, he tried to go with the drift, not wanting to focus too much on what was happening, until he found himself starting to push back against Rodney, start to have to swallow sounds that wanted to rise up in his throat. Then he clamped down hard on himself, forced himself to stay totally and completely focused. Sweat sprang up all along his back from the effort it took not to move - anyone would feel the need to, as a physical reaction, with Rodney stroking into him slow and strong and deep. The hairs on Rodney’s powerful legs were tickling the back of his thighs, and he could feel the strong muscles of Rodney’s hips working, the sweat where they were touching. He focused on not letting any sounds come out of his mouth, not rocking back into Rodney, not thinking.

Rodney was saying something now, panting a little in John’s ear, and he probably should listen, so he forced his attention back, and good thing he did, because Rodney was starting to reach a tentative hand around, panting, “Should I – you have to, for the thing, the curse thing, at the same time - ?”

John gasped, “No!” and Rodney froze for a second, withdrew his hand, said, “Okay,” in a tone John didn’t know how to categorize. He couldn’t believe Rodney had been willing to do that, but then again, these days Rodney really liked to try to be brave, so maybe it made sense, because he wouldn’t want John’s supposed sacrifice to be bigger than his own very real one.

John reached for his cock, and Rodney groaned at the same time. Obviously not wanting to share even that purely physiological reaction, Rodney muffled his sounds in his sleeve.

That set something off in John, like maybe since Rodney couldn’t hold back a sound, it could be okay for him to acknowledge there was a sort of pleasure in this, despite everything. He could feel himself beginning to lose it a little. The strange situation, the pain that’d been battering at him for days, the fact he’d not been able to jerk off for a long time now – all undoubtedly contributed to the fact he was reacting a little. He was having trouble not moving, and finally he had to, trying to make it seem like he was moving up into his own hand, jacking himself, rather than back onto Rodney’s cock, which – oh shit – was now hitting inside at an angle which set off sparks, and –

“Oh! Oh, god,” Rodney groaned, fortunately covering John’s own low moans, ripped from somewhere inside him.

They were fucking all-out now, hard and furious and fast and deep, and it was – it was okay.

Then Jesus, he was going to come, and from the muffled, choked sob behind him, so was Rodney. He managed to pant, “Close,” then sank his teeth into his own sleeve, head hanging down, sweat dripping into his eyes, his mouth, sank his teeth in hard. He felt Rodney’s cock jerk inside him, and then he was simply overpowered by an orgasm that hit him like a freight train.

When he reached enough awareness to notice, he was lying prone on the mattress, Rodney stretched out on top of him, just starting to slip out from inside him. Suddenly panicked, he shoved up at Rodney with his hands, saying, “Get off, get off me!”

Rodney made a low pained sound, which almost made John try to take it back, but really, it was better that they put this whole thing firmly behind them as quickly as possible. Rodney could catch up on his sleep when they got back to Atlantis. Rodney pulled the rest of the way out of John, obviously trying to be careful, and John lost patience, wrenching his body away.

Rodney flopped down next to him on the mattress, silent, but no longer touching John anywhere.

So that was the good thing – it had worked, because John felt completely normal. No itching or weird urges to move, no ache, no tingling, no pain. “Gone for you?” he managed to make himself ask Rodney.

“Yeah,” Rodney mumbled, face turned away from John. “It’s all gone.”

“Good. Let’s get out of here,” John said, making his voice as brisk as he could, trying not to wince at the hoarseness even he could hear.

“Sure,” Rodney said.

John pried himself off the mattress, grabbed his boxers and pants, and headed to the little toilet area to clean up, carefully not looking at Rodney, who was pulling his pants on, hair disheveled and pink flushing his face.

When they were dressed, they walked to the door in tandem. Rodney stopped with his hand on the doorknob, turned to John, and John was forced to look at him the first time since – since what they’d done. Rodney said, voice subdued, “I’m sorry,” and John shook his head minutely. “Nothing to be sorry about,” knowing it for the lie it was as the words left his mouth. John had a feeling he’d be sorry about this for the rest of his life.

Rodney tilted his head a little, shook it a fraction. “Right. Well.”

“Let’s get out of here,” John said, patience snapping, and Rodney nodded again and opened the door.

They collected Keller from her hut – she hadn’t even gone to sleep yet, that’s how short a time it had been – and went straight to Atlantis. After a humiliating session in the infirmary with Keller, and an only slightly easier one with Sam – they’d all agreed she didn’t need to know the specifics of how the process worked to rid them of the problem - John went to his quarters, careful to wait until McKay was long gone. He stripped, and then stopped short at his reflection in the mirror. He looked wrecked – hair wild, eyes wilder – and there were bruises forming on his biceps and hips where Rodney had gripped him. His knees hurt, and his chest hurt, with a tightness that seemed familiar but not.

He scrubbed all over in the water, turned as hot as he could stand, then scrubbed again and again, till the water turned cold and he was shivering violently. He crawled into bed still wet, dimming the lights without conscious thought, and worked hard, hard, hard at blanking his mind.

The next few days were a nightmare of having to work with Rodney; Rodney shooting him meaningful glances, sidelong under his lashes, blatant over meals. The kind of look that meant Rodney thought they should talk and didn’t really want to, but figured John needed it, so was gathering his courage. John applied his considerable talents at stealth and managed never to be alone with him. He was beginning to think maybe they’d dodged the inevitable, and that over the course of a few months they could work their way back to something like their normal way of relating, but of course he’d not taken into account the fact that Rodney was, despite all appearances, stupidly brave sometimes, and fully capable of using Atlantis’s detectors for personal purposes.

Rodney cornered him the fourth night after they returned home from the planet, just as he was getting ready to leave the sparring room. John had had a more aggressive than usual session with Ronon, which had almost gotten the tight feeling in his chest to subside a little. He’d stayed behind to do a little stretching, relishing the aches in his body caused by Ronon’s hits, when suddenly Rodney was there, hovering in the door.

“You’re scarily good at evasion, you know,” he said casually, looking everywhere but at John.

“I don’t know what - .”

“Oh, please!” Rodney snapped, walking into the practice room, now looking straight at John. “Don’t even try to deny it. I’d do the same thing myself – in fact – .” He looked bemused for a second – “I don’t even know why I’m not avoiding you. Huh.” John hoped for a minute that Rodney would forget what he was doing in the heat of self-discovery, but it was not to be. Rodney focused again, came closer, and said. “Whatever. The point is - .”

John started stuffing his workout gear into his duffle. His heart was beating hard and his muscles were clenching up. He didn’t want to have this conversation, or any conversation whatsoever.

Rodney seemed to sense his feelings, because his voice got gentle. “Sheppard, look. I know I’m terrible at this kind of thing, but I just wanted to say – to say that you don’t have to avoid me. I won’t – I won’t do whatever it is you’re worried I’ll – .” He swallowed audibly. “- I’ll do.”

John snorted, his anger barely kept in check. “You’re doing it right now, Rodney!”

“Oh.” Rodney’s voice was small.

“Rodney!” John warned, cringing at his own tone, because his voice sounded a little more angry than he’d intended.

“Fine,” Rodney said, turning to go. But it was too much to hope for that he actually would leave it at that, because he turned again right at the threshold. “You know what? No, I don’t think so. We have to talk about this – we have to.”

“Why the fuck do we have to, Rodney?” John grated, this time letting more of his anger twist and mingle with his words.

Rodney took a step toward him. “Oh, I don’t know – maybe because we’re friends, at least we were, and we work together, and us working together smoothly only has the fate of the entire galaxy riding on it!”

John bit his lip to keep the worst words inside. He tried to even out his voice, but it came out hoarse, intense, even so. “And you think I’m not professional enough to do that?”

“No! I mean, yes, you’re professional enough, it doesn’t have anything to do with that, it has to do with us!” Rodney yelled. “If you’re too stupid to see it, that’s not my problem.”

John took a step toward Rodney now, body quivering with adrenaline. “We’ll do just fine. There’s nothing to talk about. We both did what we had to. It doesn’t mean anything – nothing!”

Something flashed and was gone in an instant on Rodney’s face, something he couldn’t identify, and then Rodney was stepping even closer, seriously invading John’s space. “I know you hate to be touched, I know you hate to talk, but I couldn’t help it, do you get that? You think you’re being all subtle, but you’re not – you hate me now, you’re radiating it every second – you hate me for what I did, and it’s not fucking fair, because you were the one – .” Rodney bit off his words so sharply it was like John could see their edges, despite the waves of red literally flashing across his sight.

“Listen to me, Rodney, and listen really carefully,” John said, every word precise. “I hated what we did, do you hear me?” He was poking Rodney in the chest now, emphasizing every word. “I did it because we had to, just like we’ve had to do other things in this place. I’d do anything for the team, for Atlantis, and this was just one of those things. There’s nothing to talk about, because it had to be done. I don’t blame you, but I hated it, and I’m not talking about it.”

Rodney’s eyes flashed and he shoved John a little. To his horror, John realized that he’d backed Rodney up against the wall. “You listen to me,” Rodney hissed. “You’ve made it clear you hated every second of it – you made that clear on the planet, too. Well, so did I, alright? So just get your fucking act together, because there are people depending on you. On us. I get that this whole thing is messing with your Kirk identification, but it’s not the worst thing that can happen. What’s worse is, if you aren’t paying attention when you should be, or you fuck with me so I’m not, and Atlantis explodes or is taken by the Wraith, or any of thousands of inevitably fatal bad things. So. Get. Your. Fucking. Act. Together.” He spun and was out the door before John could gasp in another breath.

He sat down hard on the floor, suddenly light-headed, and breathed hard and fast, leaning his head to his knees. Before he had his wind back, the door whooshed open, and he panicked for a second, but it was only Ronon. “Forgot my stuff,” Ronon said, and John just nodded at him. Ronon seemed to take a while, and next thing John knew, the guy was crouched next to him. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” John nodded. “I’m fine.”

Ronon nodded. “Okay. Need help?”

John shook his head. “Nah.”

Ronon waited some more, and John finally figured he might as well get up. Ronon walked with him to the transporter, silent until they reached the level of John’s quarters. “Spar again tomorrow?” Ronon asked, as John got off.

“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” John said.

“If I was trying to kill you, you’d know it,” Ronon responded, and John had to smile.

“Yeah, I suppose I would,” he said, feeling a little better than he had for a while. “Thanks.”

Ronon just nodded.

For the next few days, McKay was almost the opposite of how he’d been before; now he was distant and business-like, purely professional. He was scrupulously polite, never interrupted John or shot him looks under his eyelashes, and never, ever touched him. Rodney joined John at meals if other members of the team were there, but never ate at the same time if they weren’t. On missions, he seemed to make an effort to engage in his usual sarcasm, but it fell flat, and mainly he was just quiet.

Things got a little better after a couple of weeks, but even though he’d occasionally joke with John a little, he was never really himself. He still never touched him, unless it was required on a mission. Neither of them initiated any of the things they’d normally do: computer games, movies, math puzzles, exploring the city, betting on people getting together and breaking up. John didn’t let himself feel anything, and they worked together just fine. Everything was fine. If he had to run a little further, spar a little harder, work a little later, to get a decent sleep, that was to be expected.

His stomach was twisted into knots all the time now, and he felt like putting his fist through the wall once in a while, but that would get better with time, he was sure. He’d noticed that his military people seemed to be a little better prepared these days, their shoes a little shinier and their uniforms a little more regulation. Their salutes were crisp, and there wasn’t much banter. Just as well, he thought, just as well.

On the frozen tundra of a planet with yet another pre-industrial civilization, the local chieftain made the mistake of using an obscene hand gesture to Teyla, and then the same one to John. He had the guy on the ground so fast he didn’t remember doing it, and had connected once to his jaw with satisfying power when he felt his fist grabbed from behind in an iron grip. He turned, practically snarling, and Ronon hauled him up and off the chieftain without bothering not to hurt John. He saw Rodney staring, eyes full of – something. John bit his lip, hard, fighting the rage that had hold of him, wanting to kick Ronon’s feet out from under him, land blows where it would count, maybe kick Rodney too while he was at it. Ronon just held him while John panted, then let go at some silent signal that apparently only Ronon could read. And in fact John was okay by then, and forced himself to apologize stiffly to the chieftain, who kept a careful distance between them. John felt Rodney’s eyes on him as they headed back to the gate.

He felt like he was winding up tighter and tighter, a decreasing radius event in and of himself. In his quarters that night, he pushed himself through two sets of a hundred push-ups, three sets of sit-ups, then jerked off hard and fast, his fist so tight around his cock it hurt, thinking about smashing his fist into a guy’s face. He knew he had to get a grip on himself, but for tonight, it felt good.

He watched himself closely after that, and didn’t let himself react to much of anything. He let Ronon and Teyla handle anything local, kept a careful distance from Rodney. He didn’t let himself jerk off again, either – there was something about it that brought stuff too close to the surface.

Finally, on a swampy insect-ridden planet, the third mission after the incident with the chieftain, things fell all the way apart. They were fleeing from some dinosaur-like flying creature with huge spiky talons. Ronon and Teyla had taken cover in a hollowed-out area under some twisted trees; John had shoved Rodney into a foliage-covered ditch, whispering, “Stay there.” There was no way he was crawling in there with him; there wasn’t room for one person, let alone two.

“Idiot! Get in here!” Rodney hissed at him, but John just couldn’t. It wasn’t a good idea – he felt like he was coming apart, pieces of himself flaking off in a wind, like anything could make him fade to nothing, come undone. And he couldn’t afford that. They couldn’t afford that.

He ran blindly away from where Rodney was hidden, almost relishing the harsh cries of the creature which were growing closer, closer. He darted to the side just in time, felt fire slash his back where its talons had tried to grab him, kept running. Now enraged, the creature let out a blood-curdling scream, and he’d probably miscalculated, because he could smell its raw breath and he was running out of wind. He sensed it make a grab at him, just as something barreled into his legs, knocked him down and rolled him along the ground, then into a ditch. It was Rodney, who frantically pulled fronds and branches over them, pushing John down low into the hollow, covering him with his body. They lay there, panting, for a very long time, as the creature circled above, making a keening cry that made John’s hair stand up all over his body. Rodney was stiff on top of him, and didn’t whisper even one word the entire time. Rodney didn’t speak when it was over, either, not even when they got back to Atlantis, just pressed his lips together in a tight line and wouldn’t even look at John.

After the debrief, Rodney came to his quarters, still sweaty and disheveled, striding through the door without asking, obviously furious. He got way into John’s personal space, backing him up to the wall, and yelled so loud John was sure the person next door could hear. “I’ll give you the razor blade myself if you want to kill yourself! Or no, that’s not Emo enough, I’d better get you pills!”

John breathed, “I - .”

“No!” Rodney yelled, backing John even further into the wall. “That is it!. Don’t say a fucking word. No one else will tell you, because they’re all too worried about you right now, but I’m not letting you get me or Ronon or Teyla or the people in this city killed because of your stupid caveman refusal to deal with the fact a guy fucked you!”

“Why don’t you say that a little louder, Rodney?” John managed. He could feel the smirk on his face – it was one of his weapons-grade ones, the one he used for asshole generals and bureaucrats.

Rodney shoved on his chest a little, then bit his lip and pulled his hands back down to his sides, balling them into fists. “What is your fucking problem?”

“Maybe I’m not the one with the problem. Maybe you are – why aren’t you more upset? It seems like any red-blooded guy would be,” John sneered, self-loathing battering fiercely at his brain even as the words left his lips.

Rodney narrowed his eyes. “You have got to be kidding me,” he hissed in John’s face. “I’m perfectly secure in my own sexuality – one of the few things I am secure about. Maybe you’re the one with issues, hmm?”

John whirled Rodney around, shoving him hard against the wall, hands gripping hard on his biceps, making Rodney gasp a little. “Just shut up,” he gritted. “Shut up.”

“Methinks he doth protest too much – did I hit a little close to the bone there?” Rodney asked, eyebrow lifting.

And that was it, John slammed him again against the wall, dug his fingers in tighter, said, “Shut. Up. There’s nothing wrong with me! The fact I – let you do that – it doesn’t mean anything!”

“I never said it did,” Rodney said softly, speculative look on his face. “And by the way? Last person in the universe to judge you here if that were at all true?”

“Oh, right,” John said, smirk still firmly on his face. “Because all that talk about blondes and breasts is just a cover.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “I like breasts just fine. I just don’t advertise other stuff I like.”

“What?” John’s head was buzzing a little now, but he ignored it.

Now Rodney looked uncomfortable. “Just forget it.”

John narrowed his eyes. “I’m thinking not. What the hell?”

Rodney looked at him, then looked away and coughed, looked back. “Well, just.” He pursed his lips, lifted his chin. “Okay, you know what? I’m not going to explain it away, because this friendship is apparently shot anyway, so yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” John asked, words escaping before he could censor them. The buzzing in his head was a little louder now.

“Oh, well, excuse me if I didn’t think it was exactly your business!” Rodney huffed, turning a little pink in the cheeks.

“So you - ?” John stopped himself, unsure of what he was going to ask. Memories of their evening on the damn planet with the Star assaulted him, and he thought maybe it made it actually worse, knowing that was something Rodney had done before. Or, had he? What exactly did he mean, anyway?

“Yes, I,” Rodney said, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his chin. “I never told you, because I knew you wouldn’t want to be friends if I did, even though I am perfectly capable of having a friendship with people of a sex which I – in fact, more capable than most, because that’s all I usually - .” He swallowed, took a deep breath, looked away. “I’ve never seen any reason to confine myself to just one sex – it’s hopelessly mono-dimensional, and it’s not like I have so many people throwing themselves at me that I can afford to limit myself like that, though certainly the record shows it’s mainly females, especially since grad school, but - .” Rodney stopped, coughed.

The buzzing in John’s head got worse, and he couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, and Rodney eventually started again, raising his head to look John in the eye. “And if that ruins our, our friendship – not that it isn’t already, ruined that is - knowing that about me – then, then I’m sorry, and maybe it wasn’t worth that much in the first place,” he said, tight around the eyes and mouth.

John closed his eyes against a wash of dizziness, suddenly struggling to get enough air. All the anger he’d been feeling seemed to have dissipated, or been converted, to something else – something frightening and powerful and hated. He leaned his head down to suck in oxygen, turned his hands on Rodney’s arms more into something to lean with, rather than something to shake with. Somehow, the sharp flow of words from Rodney had sharpened the tightness he’d been feeling in his chest for weeks, sharpened and solidified it into a single burning reality: the thing that had happened on the planet had cracked something open, something he’d long ago locked away as unimportant, or at least, not important enough.

The night on the planet crashed back into his head, with a power that weakened his knees. Because the way he’d told himself he’d experienced it, even at the time, was completely skewed – for all intents and purposes, a lie. In a microsecond, standing there leaning his weight into Rodney’s arms, he remembered it as it had really been.

The sweet slide of a cock burying itself in his body, the beautifully male feel of Rodney’s powerful thighs behind him. Rodney’s hands moving eventually to his hips, first gentle, then wonderfully hard. Sweat coating his body, dripping into his eyes, sliding into his panting mouth, salty and warm. The muffled grunts from Rodney; his own harsh panting.

Biting his lip, hard, on the effort required not to feel, not to give himself away. Hating his body, hating its traitorous physical responses, hating the humiliation it caused him, hating this part of himself the way his father had, fighting desperately to keep it all locked up. Losing it, coming unraveled despite everything, the slide of Rodney’s cock into his body – Jesus, it had been Rodney - unearthing the secret lust that always lay coiled dormant inside him.

Rodney’s cock inside him, hard and furious and fast and deep, and it had been amazing, despite everything – something a part of John needed and never got, never, ever, not since Afghanistan. His orgasm had seemed to originate from inside the cells affected by the Star - a rippling at first, then a clenching of his entire body, then a rushing out of his whole self, and a rushing in of pure pleasure. It had seemed to go on an infinite amount of time, until suddenly it was over, the echoes of Rodney’s muffled shout when he was pouring into John still echoing in his ears.

He gasped at the heat of his memory, felt his heart rate kick up and sweat pop up on his neck, felt his hands clasp tighter on Rodney’s arms. And then something broke, and he was leaning on Rodney, his body pressed up against him. The heat of Rodney through his BDUs, and the smell of him – earth and sweat and male and Rodney – beat into his body, shorting out his brain, and he was rubbing up against him, rutting, helpless in the grip of the lust that washed through him.

“Okay, hey, yeah, okay, okay,” Rodney said low into his ear, “Let’s just – “ and then John heard the door lock over the rushing of blood in his ears, felt Rodney moving him around so he was against the wall, felt Rodney sliding to his knees in front of him, wrestling with the fastener on his pants, saying, “Okay, it’s okay.”

Then there was wet heat around his viciously hard cock, and someone was making sounds, and he was thrusting into tightness and warmth. He tried to gasp out a warning, but he couldn’t over the roaring in his head, and then he was coming, that fast, coming and coming with a strength that arched him practically over himself, gasping.

Rodney – it was Rodney, oh fuck – it was like he’d forgotten that – had him cradled in his arms – somehow John had slipped down the wall to his own knees. And that was wrong, turning this into comfort like that, that wasn’t what this was, so he pushed Rodney down onto the floor, ripped his pants open, got Rodney’s cock in his mouth. And oh god, it was hard and thick and almost throbbing. Rodney was saying, “You don’t have to, it’s okay, you – .” But John blocked out his voice, focusing on the thick weight in his mouth, the taste of it on his tongue, the breathing through his nose, all of it freighted with the memory of things he thought he’d turned his back on a long, long time ago.

Better not to think at all, better just to feel, so he did, let Rodney’s little sounds – he had his shirt in his mouth so they were muffled – lead him, let himself get reacquainted with the slide of a cock in his mouth, let the heat of it fill him, let his body feel, for just these aching minutes, the rightness of it. And he wanted more, so he went deeper, harder, desperate on the feeling of a cock in his mouth, each stroke pushing fire through his veins.

And, astoundingly - because he was almost forty and the days he could do that were long gone - he was half-hard again, and then all the way, and when Rodney arched and came, flooding his mouth, he swallowed and came again himself, rutting against Rodney’s leg like an animal.

As soon as he could, he levered himself off Rodney’s stomach, flopping on the floor, feeling like he was drunk, or under some alien influence, his body thrumming with heat.

After a while, he forced himself to look over at Rodney, who had his arm flung over his eyes. Rodney moved his arm and grimaced a little and said, “I’m down with the whole not-talking-about-it thing at this point.”

Despite himself, John huffed out a little laugh. “Now you’re okay with that,” he managed.

“I really am,” Rodney said, wincing as he sat up. “Oh, god, my back!”

“Tell me about it,” John said, struggling upright.

“Oh, for god’s sake, come here,” Rodney griped, reaching for John and yanking on his shirt.

John scooted over closer, and then Rodney was giving him a look and raising his hand to John’s face, then bringing his lips close, and John realized, panic kicking hard through his body, that Rodney was going to kiss him.

“I’m gonna get a shower,” John said, wrenching himself away from Rodney’s arms and standing up. He risked a quick glance when he was at the bathroom door. Rodney was still sitting on the floor, pants around his ankles, shirt mussed, hair all askew, with a look on his face - a look John didn’t want to think about.

But this wasn’t going to be happening again, and if Rodney had thought so, that was his problem. And he sure wasn’t kissing him, or holding hands, or buying him flowers, or any of the other things that went along with that whole thing. Not happening. None of it was happening. None of it, ever again.

When he got out of the shower, Rodney was gone, and John refused to acknowledge the little voice inside him that wished he wasn’t. The tightness in his chest was back.

He’d fucked up royally, letting it happen, because now things were even worse than they had been – something he hadn’t thought was possible. Rodney basically locked himself in the lab and didn’t come out, other than for missions. For those, he was quiet and polite and so far from himself it was like he was a different person. John wanted to shake him and yell at him and make him be himself again, but anything like that would obviously not be a good plan under the circumstances. Sometimes, he caught Rodney looking at him when he thought John wouldn’t see, an expression on his face that made little crawly things move around in John’s stomach.

For John’s part, the twisting sensation in his chest had grown worse – he could hardly look at Rodney now without something painful and hard-edged rising in his throat. He began to wonder whether he’d have to take Rodney off his team, but the thought of that was even worse than what he was feeling now, so he just gritted his teeth and held on. Sooner or later, it’d go away.

And there was another problem. Turned out, the story of Pandora’s Box really did have a lot going for it, because whereas in the past he’d gone months, years even, without thinking about sex very much - now he thought about it all the time. Despite all his efforts, he found himself getting mental flashes of things they’d done. Rodney sinking to his knees like that – and wasn’t that a mental image, Rodney McKay, smartest guy in two galaxies, on his knees for him. Brains had always turned John on, so it wasn’t too mysterious what that image did for him. He thought about the fucking, too, no matter how many times he forced his mind away from it. That’d been Rodney under pretty damn terrible circumstances, too – god knew how good it would be if the circumstances were different.

He pushed himself harder than ever, trying to stop his mind from wandering, but no matter how far and fast he ran, no matter how long he sparred, he couldn’t beat it out of his system, and he would wake in the middle of the night, panting from a dream, already a few seconds from coming. He’d resist, and resist, but ultimately he’d always lose, and his mind would replay the stuff that’d happened with Rodney – or invent new stuff, stuff they hadn’t done. He wasn’t sleeping well; he was exhausted and off his game, and he knew it. Instead of being too quick on the trigger, he was almost the opposite now. Just today, Lorne had had to step in front of him and wrench a P-90-induced confession from a villager who’d been running a weapons-smuggling operation for Wraith worshippers.

One night, a month or so into this new phase, he gave up fighting and found himself at Rodney’s door at ten o’clock at night. He walked in without announcing himself, like they used to do. Rodney was at his desk, leaning on his hands, staring morosely at a game of solitaire golf. John’s heart twisted a little, seeing that. He hadn’t been lonely at all – he told himself that every day. But maybe Rodney had been.

“You, uh - ?” John said, standing awkwardly next to the door, trying hard not to stare at Rodney’s mouth. He wanted to hit his head against the wall for how stupid that sounded, and how pathetic he was, unable to stay away even though it was so fucked up between them now.

Rodney turned bleary eyes to John – he really didn’t look so good – and fixed an appraising glance on him. “I don’t know,” he said, slowly.

John walked closer, hating how he let his body slink a little.

Rodney rolled his eyes at him. “You don’t have to – show off.” He waved his hand in John’s direction. “I just don’t know if I like the terms,” he added, but John saw that he was looking at his arms, his hips, his thighs, not even trying to hide his longing.

“Oh, for god’s sakes, as if I’m going to turn you down,” Rodney suddenly snapped. “Because rakish genius heroes are always throwing themselves at my feet.”

Despite himself, John felt a little smile quirk up the side of his mouth. “I’m not at your feet.”

Rodney’s eyes turned dark and intense. “No, but that can be arranged if you want.”

John was on his knees and unfastening Rodney’s BDUs within two seconds. This time, though, Rodney shoved him away after a few minutes, which actually hurt, because he did it while gripping John’s hair. He was chanting, “Stop, stop, I want to, I want - ,” and John just panted for air, muzzy on the addictive taste of Rodney in his mouth. Rodney reached down and scrabbled at John’s clothes ineffectually. His hair was a mess, he was breathing hard, and he had a sort of glazed look in his eyes that John wasn’t sure he’d ever seen. “Off, off, take these off,” Rodney finally gasped, pulling at John’s BDUs, “and let’s – actually, yes, let’s go to bed.”

John felt himself shaking his head, but Rodney had a full head of steam, manhandling him through the doorway into his bedroom, shoving him down onto his prescription mattress. Of course John could have pushed Rodney away, insisted they do it on the living room floor, but it seemed to be important to the guy, and besides there were aging joints to consider, so he went along, some part of him a little wary and watching.

“Naked, naked,” Rodney was chanting, pulling at John’s clothes, so he reached down to start stripping. It was a little weird, being in a bed and getting completely naked, but he decided he could live with it once Rodney slid on top of him, skin touching skin all the way up and down John’s body. Rodney was eying John’s lips, but he just pressed his own lips together hard and bent his head down to John’s chest. For a minute John felt a twinge of something like concern, but Rodney just licked, wet and hot and dirty on John’s chest, then down to a nipple. He licked soft at first, then rough, and soon John had his fingers in Rodney’s hair and was moaning softly, hips stuttering up into Rodney’s. “Come on, come on,” he said, pushing at Rodney’s head, wanting to get to the action.

Rodney lifted his head and rolled his eyes at John, but complied, rolling a little to the side and licking his hand, reaching down to envelope John’s cock in his large fingers. John groaned and arched up off the bed, the tight wetness of Rodney’s competent hand zinging fire along his spine.

Rodney was looking at him, watching his face, and suddenly John wanted something different, was desperate to get his hands on Rodney, have Rodney be the one under the microscope for a change. He pushed Rodney’s hand off him and flipped him in a smooth move, enjoying Rodney’s little exhale when he landed on his back. “You’re ridiculous,” Rodney panted, rolling his eyes at John again.

John knew how to put a stop to any analysis, so he bent his head and licked a quick trail down Rodney’s stomach, dipping into his belly button just to pay him back for the eye-rolling, then got right to the action, wrapping his lips tightly around Rodney’s engorged cock. Rodney’s legs spread gratifyingly under his hands, and he definitely couldn’t form sentences any more, because he was gasping, “You, ohgod, yes, fuck, John,” in a litany that just made John’s cock even harder, lust bubbling in his bloodstream and humming through his body.

He wanted more – he wanted to take Rodney apart, watch that brilliant brain and busy mouth be reduced to mush, wanted Rodney’s whole focus to be him, him. Rodney was panting and shoving up into his mouth now, so he slowed it down, stroking Rodney’s trembling thighs under his hands. Rodney’s legs opened even wider, and a thrill coursed through John, because he was pretty sure he knew what that meant. Experimentally, he ran a finger up Rodney’s right thigh, up the crease at the top of his leg. Rodney groaned, shoved his cock up harder into John’s mouth, lifted his knees a little, and yeah, that was a signal John could read, so he let his finger trail down the crease beside Rodney’s taut balls, down, down. He brushed a finger down behind and Rodney groaned louder, said, “Yeah,” and that was it, John was on fire.

He pulled his mouth off and Rodney moaned, following John’s lips with his cock, but his eyes opened wide when John raised his hand to Rodney’s mouth and snaked a finger, two fingers, three, inside. Rodney’s eyes were shocky, and he was breathing hard, and John felt an irrational urge to watch him, so he kept his mouth off Rodney’s cock for a minute while he brought his dripping fingers down, down, then broached Rodney with one finger, just a little, keeping it still, not pushing in any further. Rodney’s eyes opened even wider, and he was staring right into John’s eyes, saying, “Yeah, oh my god, yes,” and John pushed the finger in a little more, watching Rodney’s face, savoring the almost-panic on his face, the expression in his eyes.

He pushed the finger in harder, then again and again, as Rodney’s eyes, flashing blue, went dark and intense. It was addictive and he wanted more of this Rodney, so he pulled out, then shoved another finger in. Rodney arched up, said, “Oh god, oh please, John. Something felt a little weird all of a sudden, so John dipped his head again, took Rodney in his mouth, working his fingers methodically at what he knew would be a maddeningly slow pace and shallow depth. Sure enough, Rodney was frantic, pushing his hips up, trying to get John’s fingers deeper, his cock further back in John’s mouth.

Then Rodney was talking again, “Wait, wait, I want, I want - ,” but John knew victory when it was in his hands, and he hummed a little around Rodney’s cock, twisted his fingers, hard, and Rodney was coming apart under him, under his hands and his mouth, grunting and arching and spilling into John’s mouth, grabbing the sheets with his fists, saying, “Oh god, oh god.”

John swallowed, let the warm liquid shiver his body even tenser, let the male taste and smell and feel of Rodney permeate him, pushed his cock hard against Rodney’s leg, so close, so close, and then Rodney was saying, “Wait, wait, I want to – ,” and reaching for him, but it was so good, and it was better this way anyway, and then he was coming, all the muscles in his body locked, coming all over Rodney’s leg, biting the sheet under his face so as not to cry out.

When he became aware of his surroundings again, he was collapsed on his side, half on Rodney, and Rodney’s hands were in his hair. For a moment, he let himself relax into the feeling of those big hands stroking, so softly, the accommodating body underneath him supporting his weight.

“You idiot,” Rodney said, with unmistakable fondness, never faltering in the smooth strokes to John’s hair. “I wanted to do stuff to you, not have you rut against my leg like a dog. Again.”

John squirmed a little. “Couldn’t help it,” he managed.

Rodney breathed out a scoff. “Right. Well, anyway, we know which one of us is responsible, so we know who has to sleep in the wet spot.”

John tried not to stiffen at that, but he couldn’t help it. Rodney’s hands stilled on John’s hair, and John heard him sigh a little. “Or not.”

The tone of Rodney’s voice made John feel something like regret, but he pushed it down hard, knowing if he didn’t there would be bigger regret in store in the future. He pushed himself up on his arms, rolled off Rodney, and said, “Yeah, I’ve got stuff. Early morning. You know.”

John saw Rodney nod out of the corner of his eye as he pulled on his pants. “Yeah, I think I do.” Even though it was the right thing to do, John felt a little tug when he left, and he couldn’t get to sleep for hours, just lay there staring at his ceiling.

He avoided any time alone with Rodney again for a few days, which wasn’t too hard, since they had back-to-back missions with no sleep – unproductive ones which left all of them cranky. John’s skin was beginning to itch with a need to touch Rodney – that was the problem with giving into it; once you started, it was hard to give it up – he’d learned that when he was a lot younger.

Rodney seemed to be avoiding him, though, so it was a week or more before he managed to find him in his quarters in the evening. “You, uh - ?” he said, sitting on the edge of Rodney’s desk, pissed at himself for needing this, pissed that Rodney was making him ask for it.

Rodney put his hand over his eyes for a second, then turned and faced him. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his face sagged a little. “Look,” he said.

Oh, no. John had heard that tone before, he was pretty sure. From his wife, among others, and that was so not a tone he’d ever expected to hear from Rodney McKay. Rodney seemed a little surprised himself, biting his lip and checking out John’s body, leaning and draped over his desk.

“Look, I can’t believe I’m saying this, because really, the hotness – your – the thing.” Rodney winced and held up his hand. “Give me a minute.”

John just looked at him, a weird crawly feeling in his stomach.

“The thing is,” Rodney said, “I can’t do this.”

“What?” John said, wincing himself after he said it.

“It’s – you’re – I just can’t.” Rodney stared at the floor.

“Oh,” said John. “Okay.”

“No!” Rodney yelled. John looked at him. “What I mean,” Rodney said, “is no, you’ve got it wrong. I think.”

“What is there to get wrong?” John asked, letting some of the anger he always felt these days bleed into his voice. “You don’t want this. I get it.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Rodney said, gripping the arms of his chair hard enough his knuckles were white. “I’m pretty damn sure you don’t get it at all.”

“It’s simple,” John said, the feeling in his stomach turning to outright nausea. “You don’t want this.”

“It’s not simple, you moron,” Rodney spat. “I want this. I want you, to be more specific.” He looked away and John saw a flush crawl up his neck.

“Well, me, too,” John said.

Rodney’s head snapped back around. “You do not. Oh, I mean, you want something – you want blow jobs and sex when you feel like it, at least on the days you can admit to yourself you like cock. But I’m too old to be fuck buddies – I want more than that, and you don’t. And I can’t believe I just said that, either; I swore to myself I wouldn’t, because it’ll just make you pull away harder, and I’d really like to salvage at least a chess partner out of this whole mess.” He rolled his eyes. “And seriously? I’m about the last person on earth to be saying stuff like this, and it pisses me off I have to, because I don’t want to get married, ever, I don’t even want to hold hands, I don’t want to have to remember anniversaries or birthdays, or, god, those insipid mass-produced holidays that everyone’s always - . ” He stopped himself in mid-sentence and coughed. “Well, I guess you get my drift.”

John swallowed. “Look. Rodney, I’m sorry, I do want this. I really do.”

Rodney shook his head. “You can’t even look me in the eye. You can’t even admit you like it. You won’t talk to me on missions any more, not really, you won’t play golf or watch movies or - .” Rodney broke off and looked resolutely at the floor.

Rodney’s tone of defeat hurt something in John, or tried to merge with some part of John that was already hurt. But it was impossible; there was no point thinking about it. “I think I’m doing just fine, considering,” John said, trying to get his brain to shut up, go away, stop trying to tell him he was screwing up the best thing he’d had come along in a long, long time. “I’ve been dealing with this a long time, and I’ve figured out how to deal with it – it’s not a problem for me.”

Rodney raised an eyebrow at him. “You are every fucking cliché, seriously, it’s unbelievable.”

“What are you - ?” Even to his own ears, John’s voice sounded defensive.

“Give me a break, Mr. ‘I’m a closeted guy who takes it up the ass but won’t kiss a man.’” Rodney said, doing air quotes. “Jesus, John, look at yourself, for God’s sake.”

John narrowed his eyes at Rodney, something hot and sharp twisting in his stomach again. “I told you, I’m fine. It’s better this way, and it’s just fine,” he bit out.

“Well, bully for you,” Rodney said, looking straight at him again. “You know what? It’s pretty fucking pathetic when I’m better at something emotional than you, but that’s it exactly, isn’t it? You’re fucked up, you know that? So brave, so willing to throw yourself into a sun, or FedEx a nuclear bomb to a hive ship personally, but when it comes to this - ” Rodney gestured between them in an impatient hand wave “when it comes to this, you’re pathetic! Worse than me, and that’s saying something! At least I know what I’m feeling, and I don’t think you have the slightest clue.” He narrowed his eyes. “And if you do, you’re even more fucked up than I think you are. I have to believe that even you wouldn’t do this to me on purpose. And if you have been -” he bit his lip, and his eyes looked a little moist. “If you have been, then what is this - the friends thing, really worth?”

Rodney stood up and walked out the door, and John was left standing, shaking, little gasps trying to fight their way up his windpipe.

Another three missions went by with them hardly talking. John’s people were always very, very busy when he walked by, and Rodney’s scientists looked even more harried than normal. Ronon and Teyla exchanged little looks that they probably thought John didn’t see, but he just ignored them.

When he found himself flat on his back for the twentieth time in twenty minutes while sparring after the last mission, Teyla crouched over him with a fighting stick pressed to his throat, eyebrow raised, he knew he’d about reached the end of what he could tolerate, and apparently, so had the rest of the people on Atlantis. Or more importantly, Teyla.

She tipped her head to the side and looked at him, hard. He felt a little squirmy, and tried to convince himself her sensitivity didn’t extend to humans. That worked about as well as it should have, and then she confirmed his fears, saying softly, “Perhaps you are distracted?”

The denial almost left his lips, but he knew from experience it was hopeless when Teyla was involved. And he could ask her something he’d been worried about. “Has it - .” He swallowed. “Has it affected my ability as team leader, military leader?” he asked softly.

“No,” she answered. “And yes.”

He pressed his lips together, and she went on, easing up on the stick a little. “No, for everyone else, except they’re afraid of you now, in a different way than before. Which you need to fix. But mainly, no. For Rodney? Yes. You are – not yourself.”

“Oh,” he said, wishing none of it had happened, and they could go back to how they were before.

She looked at him fondly and removed the stick, reached a hand to help him sit up. “Do not despair. I am confident you and Rodney will find your way, wherever the path will lead.”

She smiled at him then, and it warmed him, that someone had faith in him, because he sure didn’t, not on this stuff, since he clearly was pretty damn screwed up – he was willing to admit it that much to himself now, though it didn’t change anything really, knowing it.

“I think – ” she said, and he nodded at her infinitesimally. “I think he misses you. Your friendship.”

John had to swallow hard and blink a little, because yeah, actually, he did as well. He did, too.

“Look, Rodney,” he said, when he finally mustered the courage to go to Rodney’s quarters late that night. “I can’t. I can’t give - . I shouldn’t have - . I’m sorry.”

Rodney gave him a measuring look. “Well, at least you found your balls from wherever you lost them.” He held up his hands. “Oh, god, don’t even try that scary commando look on me. All it does it get me hot, and that’s not what you want right now.”

“It isn’t?” John said.

“No, it isn’t,” Rodney said, “because even though I can’t believe I’m sticking with this, thank you very much, I’m not going to subject myself to the kind of emotional torture having extremely hot sex with you would involve.” He made a face after he said it, and John’s heart did a little flip, damn it.

“Look, Rodney, I can’t. Military, get it?”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask, right? Don’t tell, hello! So first of all, even back on Earth, unless you want to dress in rainbows and have a commitment ceremony at Headquarters, I seriously doubt anyone would ask, or tell.”

John sat down after getting a short nod from Rodney. He sighed. “It happens. I wanted to be an officer, and I wanted to fly planes. They’ll tolerate up to about lieutenant, but beyond that – you need the wife, the kids, you’ve got to speak their language, and you’ll never get promoted if anyone suspects. Happened to someone I knew – he was stalled out, shut out faster than you could fire a P-90 once he hit officer rank.” He ran a hand through his hair, took a breath. “Another guy I knew – he killed himself. He’d gotten married, all that, so he could command, but it ate him up, wrecked her life. The whole nine yards.”

Rodney’s eyes were warm, gentle on him. He added, “It was just more important to me – flying was more important than this.” He waved between them vaguely.

Rodney smiled grimly. “Right, and look how well that whole marriage thing worked out for you. How did you do that, anyway? I mean, I’d be surprised if there’s a bone in your body that responds to women like that, because - .”

John had narrowed his eyes, and Rodney finally noticed. He coughed a small cough, saying softly. “Right, digression. Well. Anyway, the point is, even if all that were true on Earth, which I grant you it pretty much is if you’re insane enough to want to rise in the ranks, it’s got nothing to do with things out here. It’s a whole new world – and yes, I realize I sound like a Disney song, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it is.”

John closed his eyes for a minute, then opened them and said, soft and low, wanting to offer Rodney the truth, or at least a part of it. “You think I haven’t thought it through? You think I haven’t done the calculations? It’s just not been worth it. It’s easier this way, and no one gets hurt.”

“No one except you,” Rodney said, in almost a whisper.

There really wasn’t anything to say to that, so John didn’t; just smiled a little grim smile at Rodney, because the guy really did care about him, in a way not many people had – in fact, maybe in a way no one had. Maybe ever. “Look,” he said. It was painfully awkward to say, but he knew it was the only way Rodney would come around. He caught himself looking at the floor and forced himself to look at Rodney. “I really. I miss you, okay?”

Rodney stared at him for a long few seconds, then nodded, tentatively at first, then resolutely. “Yeah. Okay, then.” He took a breath. “Computer golf?”

John smiled his gratitude at him, cleared his throat. Rodney was a champ, really. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re on.”

So they went back to being friends, which filled something that had gone hollow inside John. At the beginning it was often awkward – when they’d been watching a movie, a couple of feet away from each other on John’s narrow bed, or when one of them scored an impossible point in golf and the other grinned like a maniac over their consoles. And they never got quite back to how it had been before. But overall, John felt better, much better, because at least he had Rodney mainly back. If there was a part of him that whispered sometimes of a longing for something more, something he’d never had, well, he was used to that.

Once in a while he surprised a look on Rodney’s face that made him think he still wanted something more from John. Sometimes it was easy to identify – a look of unabashed desire, Rodney’s eyes wandering furtively over John’s body. Other times, it was something he couldn’t really pinpoint – something that made Rodney’s eyes soft, his mouth curl softly up. Both looks made something uncomfortable and hot rise up in John’s throat, and when that happened, he had to run longer and further, or spar longer, or even make sure he went on a long, hard mission. But overall, it was okay. He was good.

Once in awhile, he caught himself watching Rodney’s hands on a piece of equipment and couldn’t remember how long he’d been watching. Occasionally, he’d realize he was watching Rodney’s powerful legs through his BDUs as they double-timed it up some hill. And pretty often, he found himself watching his mouth, which was rarely still. But mainly, it was fine.

One day, they got a call from the planet where it all started, asking John to come see the Priestess. He didn’t like it at all, but she said she had a gift, something precious for them, but John himself needed to be the one who came. So he went, despite the crawling sensation in his body.

She met him in the room with the Star, which he stayed far away from, eying it warily the whole time. “Here,” she said, handing him a ZPM. “For those who achieve Peace, the Ancestors left a reward. It has about half its power left. It is yours for the space of time you need it; then you should return it here.”

John went on guard, subtly shifting his weight into a more defensive posture. “People don’t give people even partially-charged ZPMs out here,” he said.

She smiled, this time a full, genuine smile. “We have all the power we need. The Ancestors meant the Peace ceremony as a way of determining who was worthy. You, John Sheppard, are worthy.”

From nowhere, John felt his eyes prick and his throat tighten. What the hell?

When he looked up again, the Priestess was looking straight into his eyes. “You are.”

“I don’t – .” John cleared his throat. “I don’t understand.”

“Honestly? I don’t completely either,” she said, looking less like a Priestess and more like a middle-aged woman wearing a robe. “But sometimes the Star flares, sometime after a Peace ceremony – it’s color-coded to the specific person - and that means there’s more to it than there seems, and it means the time is right. And we have to follow up, and give the ZPM as an inducement, and tell the person. Maybe you can figure it out, because I do actually get tired.” She rubbed at her forehead.

He smiled at her, a genuine smile, because he sure knew what it was like to get tired, and he knew what it was like to have to enact a role all the time.

“What I do know,” she continued, “is that despite your strong resistance to the idea, you did what was necessary, preserving the lives of yourself and Dr. McKay, for the benefit of your people. Not everyone does that.”

“Wait,” John said. “There are people who don’t give in? I mean, pain is one thing, but having your cells ripped apart?”

She nodded at him, a sad little nod. “Yes. Yes, there are people who resist the pain to the point where they die in agony, their cells expanding past the tolerance level. They are so desperate to avoid intimacy with their fellow leader, you see. It’s usually due to a social stigma of some kind – class, or caste, or race, something similar.”

“But, why would anyone let themselves be torn apart from the inside, rather than – rather than have sex with a certain kind of person?” John asked.

The room suddenly got very, very quiet. Motes of dust floated gently in the streams of light arcing in through the stained-glass windows. The air seemed thicker somehow, ancient. His question echoed in the silent temple.

“Good question,” the Priestess finally said, her voice quiet and intense. She looked every inch the Priestess now as she looked straight into John’s eyes, held his gaze for a long moment. “I was hoping you could tell me why.”

“Oh,” John said, things rearranging themselves in his head, something flipping his stomach around like he was in free fall. “Oh.”

He waited until McKay was in his quarters that night, waited till most of the city was asleep. He went to Rodney’s door, then turned around and was halfway back to his quarters before he forced himself back around, marched back to Rodney’s door. When he got there, his heart was pounding so hard he felt hot, then cold. He leaned his head against the wall next to Rodney’s door, just breathing, trying to get it together. Maybe the whole thing was doomed, impossible, maybe this would be the biggest mistake of his life, maybe Rodney wouldn’t want it anymore anyway, or maybe he didn’t want what John –

The door whooshed open and Rodney raised an eyebrow at him. “Much as I’m glad to see you working on your relationship with Atlantis, Colonel, I think you should come in. You don’t look too good.”

John followed, helpless, hovered inside Rodney’s door, shaking his head at Rodney’s offer of the couch, afraid that if he sat down in that familiar territory the old tapes would be played. Rodney stood near him, though not too close, and suddenly John was sick at himself – sick at the careful distance he maintained from everyone, sick at his own denials.

He called on his courage, because he knew he had it, facing the things he did - it was just that he never had used it for this. He called on it, and turned full-on to Rodney, forced words past his still-reluctant lips. “I am that guy. The closeted one. Stereotype.”

It took Rodney a minute, but one of the benefits of him being a genius was he actually could follow John’s sentences. “So, you’ve – never mind,” Rodney said.

“I want. To tell you,” John said, grimacing at how lame it sounded.

Rodney nodded. “To talk.”

“Yeah,” John said. “It’s - . It’s hard.” Seriously, could he sound any more lame?

Rodney smiled. “Well, duh. I don’t really want to talk about things, either, most of the time.”

“Yeah,” John said. “That’s one of the cool things.”

Rodney looked at him, searching, like he was trying to figure out what John was talking about. “About you,” he added, because Rodney deserved that.

Rodney’s ears turned a little pink and it made John feel surprisingly warm, and also a little ashamed, that such a small thing could make him happy like that. Really, he was a dick, because Rodney deserved a lot more than that. “I - kissing. Sleeping over. That stereotype,” he blurted.

“I think it should frighten me more than it does that I understood what you meant perfectly,” Rodney said. “So, you really haven’t? Kissed a guy, I mean? Slept over, all of that part of it?”

John nodded, relieved he didn’t have to spell it out, which really shouldn’t be a surprise, since that was in fact one of the great things about McKay. “I’ve never – .” He swallowed, but the confession beat its way past the constriction in his throat. “I’ve never, with a guy - .” He bit his lip, couldn’t get the words out.

Rodney said, very soft, “Everything else, but never that?” but it came out like a statement.

John bit his lip and looked at the floor, but nodded once, sharp. He nodded, and handed Rodney a piece of himself right there, a piece that he’d never handed to anyone, ever.

But Rodney must have understood, and didn’t say anything. When John looked up, Rodney was just looking at him, looking at him like - like something that twisted John’s heart in his chest and constricted his throat. He twisted his face away, but Rodney caught him, gently but firmly turning him back, hands cupped around his cheeks. He had the look on his face now that he got when he was about to do something very brave, or very dangerous – and maybe, John thought, this was both.

John felt himself shaking, actually shaking under Rodney’s hands – and wasn’t that embarrassing? But Rodney just said, “Decreasing radii.”

It startled a “What?” out of John, but Rodney just said, “Figure it out, Mr. Mensa,” and slowly, slowly, brought his face toward John’s, one hand cupped behind John’s head, the other cupped softly around his cheek.

The ache in John’s chest grew, and grew some more until it felt like cells were expanding past their limits again, but he forced himself not to break away, not to run. He held Rodney’s eyes for a while, and then he couldn’t, but he held his ground. Rodney’s breath was soft on his face, and then gently, like catching an updraft in a glider, Rodney’s mouth was on his, and it was okay, it was nice, he could do it.

It was gentle, and sweet, and Rodney held his face with his hands, but softly, so he could break away any time he wanted.

But he didn’t want to, he wanted this – he wanted to be kissed by a man – he wanted to kiss a man – he wanted to kiss Rodney. Rodney’s mouth was wide, and strong, but John could tell he was keeping it banked, had tamped everything down so John couldn’t even tell it was a guy – it could be anyone.

He didn’t want that, though – he didn’t want it to be anyone, and he realized, with a lurch in his stomach like a dive without inertial dampeners, he wanted to know it was a guy – he wanted to know it was Rodney. So he brought his hands up, feeling awkward, curving one behind Rodney’s neck, bringing the other one to card through Rodney’s thinning hair. Rodney made a little sound when he did that, but John could feel him still holding back, not letting himself react like he probably wanted to.

So he tipped his head a little, curved his hands a little more aggressively into Rodney’s face and neck, let his mouth open just a little, and then a lot, licking a little on Rodney’s lips. Rodney gasped into his mouth, and that made John gasp and press his tongue in a little, and Rodney’s mouth opened under his. Then he had Rodney pressed back against the wall, his tongue in his mouth, and Rodney was giving it back, tentative at first, but then strong and aggressive when John opened to him and let him in.

Their tongues were tangling, and their hands were twined in each other’s hair, and John suddenly got it, in a moment that knocked what little air he had left straight out of his body. Because he’d done it – he’d banked steeper into the turn, and cut his engine speed, and the turn was tighter and purer than any he’d ever flown. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, but it was worth it. Rodney was right, as usual, because this felt like all the best flights of his life, all the soaring climbs and steep dives, and all the rolls and most of all, the turns with decreasing radii, where all you could do was let go of your instinctual fear, and trust – trust that following the laws of physics actually worked, and that you’d come out safe in the end, rewarded by something pure and frightening as hell, but beautiful.

The kiss went on and on, and John felt a deep silent joy curl through his body, replacing the detritus of a lifetime. Rodney made a noise and John realized, suddenly, that they’d been grinding up against each other and his cock was hard in his BDUs, and he was seconds from coming. He almost felt regret, because this wasn’t about that, wasn’t about sex pressed up against a wall – though, he reflected in the corner of his brain that wasn’t shorted out with the lust that suddenly flooded him, he’d never had sex against a wall like this, either.

There had been hand jobs, furtive, in alleys and bathrooms. There had been blow jobs, on his knees in front of some anonymous guy, or some guy kneeling in front of him. And there’d been fucking, both ways, against grimy walls behind grungy clubs or barracks. But there’d never been this – the kind of thing guys would do when they were sixteen, making out. Nothing at all like this, ever.

It was like he’d traveled backwards, inwards, to the things he should have done when he was thirty, when he was twenty, when he was sixteen, one step at a time, like spiraling ever tighter in a turn, and maybe that was what Rodney had meant.

But his body was taking over, and he let it, let himself relax into the heat of it; the simple pleasure of making out. When he came, crying out on the joy of it, he was kissing Rodney, and Rodney was kissing him back. They kept kissing even after they’d come, and then kissed some more, the kisses getting slower and slower, until they were just gentle presses of their lips, until the wetness in his pants was cool and uncomfortable.

After more time, John finally leaned his forehead against Rodney’s, panting a little even now. Rodney was quiet – quieter than usually felt comfortable to John – but he was okay with that. He felt like being quiet, too, but not in the usual way, in a new way. Still, it felt like he should say something, though he figured Rodney didn’t really need that. He reached for Rodney’s hands, laced their fingers together, took a breath. “You were right,” he whispered, voice wrecked-sounding. “I had to bank into the turn. Sorry it took me so long.”

Rodney squeezed his hands a little and said, “Genius here. Always right. But hey – I had to, too. It isn’t easy, trusting to – trusting - .”

John smiled. “Trusting to physics,” he said, pulling back and smiling at Rodney.

Rodney smiled at him, looking straight into John’s eyes, which yeah, were probably a little damp, but who the fuck cared. “Right. Physics,” Rodney said, and they both smiled. “And also whacked-out alien devices that make people have sex to inspire peace between leaders.”

“Or inside them,” John said quietly, because he’d realized, just tonight, that like most Priestesses in the Pegasus, this one had been a little ambiguous. Rodney lifted an eyebrow gently, and John said, “Maybe not so whacked-out after all,” grimacing a little at the admission.

Rodney raised his eyebrow higher, in the way that meant, it’s just another day in the Pegasus, and suddenly John wanted Rodney to know, to know how John felt. Because any day out here could be the last. He let his smile fade like it wanted to, pulled Rodney’s hand toward him. Rodney looked a question at him, but John brought the hand to his own chest, put it over his heart, covered it with his hands. Rodney’s face was a picture of shock, his eyes wide and open, but John let himself fall into the spiral - easy as breathing once you got the hang of it – and said, “Decreasing radius turn - circling inward, closer and closer around a point fixed in space.”

Rodney gaped for a minute, then a little longer, and finally breathed out a half-laugh, half-gasp. He pressed his palm even stronger onto John’s heart, in a weird reverse echo of the Wraith’s draining touch, covered John’s hands with his other hand, and whispered, looking straight into John’s eyes, “Me, too. Me, too. For a really long time.”

And, John discovered, there actually was something better than flying. “Cool,” he said, still a little choked up. “Cool.”

Just when John started feeling weird because of all the emotional stuff, Rodney said, low and teasing and hot in his ear, “I don’t care what you say. Next time, you’re not coming against my leg.”

John could live with that, he really could.

The End